The Angel Falls
by mediaboy
Summary: Alex Rider is MI6's top agent. Lauren Adams is a CHERUB agent about to retire. Why did anybody think this was a good idea? - Beta'd by Zyzyax
1. Chapter 1

**AN: It has been a long time since I've read either of these series. Referring to wikis is not the same as having read all of the books, but eh. Who cares? I have no idea how this fits into any of the chronologies, if any of the characters I'm using are dead or dismembered, or basically anything at all. Just playing with the characters, the worlds and some ideas.**

"It's Tulip."

The lady at the desk froze for a second before reaching out and grabbing the phone, taking it off speaker phone. "What do you want?"

"Zara!" The element of surprise showed in the caller's voice, "I thought you'd retired."

"Duty calls." Zara flicked her eyes towards the door, "I heard you got promoted."

"Alan was asked to resign after the… events a few years ago." There was an awkward pause, "You know how it is in our business. He made a call. It was a bad call-"

"-and no one will miss him. Yes." Zara's voice was dry, "I presume that means that you're running it over there these days?"

"For the last two years, yes. And for most of the previous ten, unofficially." They shared a laugh before Tulip continued, "I'm not interrupting anything am I?"

"Not so long as you keep this quick. I've a meeting in five. How can I help?"

Though Zara Asker, head of CHERUB, couldn't see it, Tulip Jones opened a folder on her desk and stared down at the attached photo of her best agent. "I need a favour."

Zara's eyebrows raised. MI6 was not known for a willingness to seek aid from other organisations. The opposite, in fact, especially in the last few years. "It must be something big. You want to discuss this over the phone or do you want to come on over?" A quick glance at her diary, a quick glance at the clock, "I'm free this evening. We could go to that place you used to like?"

Mrs Jones paused, before closing the folder once more, her own calendar on the desk in front of her. "_The Queen's Crown_?"

"7 pm."

"Done. And Zara?" Mrs Jones barely waited for that moment of acknowledgement before continuing, "I may pretend not to know what you get up to, but make sure you bring some of your agent files with you. The older ones. Even recent retirees maybe. We're going to need a shortlist."

"You've got a job for us?" There was a note of incredulity now. MI6 had always been against the entire CHERUB concept, claiming that children had no place in espionage, claiming that children didn't deserve that kind of pressure, that kind of lifestyle. "I thought that-"

"A lot of people thought that." Mrs Jones glanced down at the closed folder once more before nodding decisively, "And Zara? Make sure they're female please."

"Female? Why do they have to be fem-" The hum of the dial tone interrupted before she could finish. The phone being slammed into its cradle a second later, as Zara swore. "Fucking Six."

It had been a long three years. Three years since James Adams had been caught up with the entire Brigands mess, since his friend Kyle and him screwed up an operation in progress so badly that the entirety of CHERUB had been called into question. International relations, international politics, the entire thing with the politician. The greater body of MI5 operations hadn't been impressed, let alone the fact that it had compromised an active MI6 operation as well.

Zara sent an email off to the personnel manager as she ran through the older operatives in her head. Bethany Parker would have been an obvious choice… three years ago, before they had to drop her from the program. Kerry Chang perhaps? She'd managed to avoid being tarred with any brushes. Ex-CHERUB, of course, but still on the ball enough? She scribbled the name down.

There was the elephant in the room of course and Zara felt she should acknowledge it. Lauren Adams. The only person to ever get a black shirt, the highest accolade a CHERUB agent could receive, stripped from her. Though she'd re-earnt it in the last three years of course. After the entire Brigands mess…. her line of thought trailed off and she pulled herself consciously back to the future. Lauren was leaving the campus soon, for good. An agent disgraced who re-earnt their honours. There were commendations in her file, but there was still an attitude problem there. One that they should have perhaps seen coming, given that it was the first time they'd ever stripped an operative of their rank, but what else were they supposed to do? They were spies, not schoolkids, and noticing that your phone was bugged was part of basic training. But still, Zara would be a damn liar if she didn't admit that Lauren was one of the best agents to ever pass through the CHERUB program. She knew that MI5 already had eyes on her.

Zara paused once more, considering that implication, before adding the name to the very short list anyway. Then there was that newer girl. Charlotte something-or-other. Three names. She hoped it was enough for whatever they wanted. But still, she wondered, why female? It wasn't entirely unusual, but it did raise a few questions she'd want answers to.

Though Zara was completely unaware of it, the real fault with the request lay several hundred miles west of the London office where Mrs Jones was now rapidly sorting out the last remnants of the day's paperwork. Her request, whilst unsolicited, was one that she knew her agent would vastly prefer given the nature of the cover they were likely to use, and it was every good boss' duty to ensure that their employees at least knew when to shut up. In her office, Mrs Jones reached for the phone. It was probably a good time to insist that her top agent make time for an evening meal.

The motorbike roared its way down the road, coasting along at a sluggish ninety miles an hour, rock music blasting inside the helmet as the rider wound his way between the hills. He was singing along, almost in tune, and seemed to be enjoying the ride, unconcerned by anything going on around him, the wind soaring past his ears, the water rushing down the river under the bridge ahead of him, the bullets whistling down the road, throwing sparks up from the tarmac.

Alex Rider was serving his country with distinguishment.

"Stormbreaker was only the beginning," as Blunt had been so fond of telling people around the water cooler (not that Alex ever got to be around the water cooler mind, given that they'd relocated his office to be off-site almost as soon as he accepted the offer of having one). Seventy-three missions for MI6, seventy-two successes, and one mission that Smithers just refused to shut up about. Though Blunt had nothing to do with him these days after the Grief cockup and the entire "shooting your agent's family" debacle. "Questionable judgement" the inquest had decided. And Alex knew, because the first thing he'd done upon getting his clearance, was to open the file and see what the fuck Blunt had been thinking. Bastard.

A bullet dug up the road in front of him, reminding him of the fact that being a super spy wasn't all women and motorcycles. In his defence, there were plenty of reasons for him to have taken the file, plenty of reasons for them to have expected them to take the file and, somewhat embarrassingly, no real reason for him to get caught taking the file. Wolf would have a field day, he was sure. The Spanish cunt. Whenever Alex was busy saving the world, what was the soldier doing? Running around firing bullets into thin air, he was sure. Alex didn't know just how many bullets the army took to kill a man, but he was sure it was more bullets than he used. Wastage! Think of the poor accountants.

Speaking of which... He glanced behind him, noting the four motorcycles, the four riders, remembering their positions, their speeds, their movement. The road was empty ahead of him, the bridge clear. In a single movement, he braked, spinning the bike, his hand seeming to drift like an extension of his own body, almost as if it had a mind of its own, the gun in his hand as natural as his own fingers, an extension of his wrist. Nine shots rang out. Overkill, of course, but it seemed stupid to take a risk. Even if it did mean he was acting more like the trigger-happy SAS than the smooth, sophisticated MI6.

He was reloading and approaching the groaning bad guys, dramatic hero monologue all prepped, when his phone rang. Rolling his eyes, he slid his helmet off and picked up his mobile. "I'm busy, what is it?"

"I need you to come in."

"Can it wait? I'm literally in the middle of something."

"Wrap it up fast."

Alex sighed, before firing four shots and pressing a button on his phone to let Smithers know that someone should come clean up his mess. At least there was a river there. That tended to make things a bit easier. To her credit, Mrs Jones didn't even blink at the gunshots, simply sipping at her tea as she waited for her operative.

"Where do you need me now? The Bank?"

"You know we've got a lifetime ban on you ever coming here." Alex reloaded the gun again as she continued, "Lord knows you've caused enough chaos inside of London. What do you think of green trees, riverbanks, a nice pub?"

"Sounds just like here." He picked his motorcycle up and lent against it, staring down at the river, "Are you sure it's any better?"

"I could promise you company." She could smell his dubiousness, "It's almost definitely female."

"Almost definitely." His tone gained a hint of sarcasm as he ran a hand through his sandy locks, "This is very reassuring. How could I ever doubt you?"

"Just turn up Agent Rider." Mrs Jones rubbed her brow, wondering just why exactly they hadn't already fired the damn man. If not for his efficiency, his competence… "I've sent you the address."

There was a moment of fumbling as he glanced down at his phone again, throwing the address into his GPS. He blinked slowly, before lifting the phone back to his ear. "You weren't joking about the pub."

"Alex, please."

"I hope you're paying for my drink."

"Shaken not stirred?" She kept her tone dry, her delivery deadpan. They didn't need to overly encourage the boy. "7pm. Make sure you're on time."

"And there's going to be company?" He mounted the bike idly, wheeling it round to face down the road, "Of the female kind?"

The buzz of a dial tone was all the confirmation that Alex needed to confirm that Tulip Jones was quite finished with him. He glanced at the GPS once more, before looking at his watch as a small grin snuck onto his face. He picked us his phone and dialled a number, barely waiting for the other side to pick up before smirking, a touch of cockiness creeping onto his features, "This is Agent Rider. Do you still have access to the regional traffic controls?"

In the end, it took him nearly three hours and dealing with one over-enthusiastic jumped up officer who decided to take the law into his own hands and ignore his computer's instruction to leave the agent alone. Three hours, three hundred miles. Not bad.

The pub itself was about what he expected from a rural riverside pub in the middle of nowhere. It was rather like the one he'd visited briefly when he was based out in Germany but with less lederhosen, less beer and fewer people trying to sneak poison into his drinks. A gorgeous Victorian front led into a spacious yet homely space, with wooden tables filling the space, animals winding their way up the legs in carved masterpieces. The room itself was nearly empty, despite the late hour of the day, only a few people sat around, a few men in suits chatting quietly to each other, a stunning brunette at the back of the room with a glass of wine, a Kindle and a sexy black dress. He let the tension ease out of him as we walked up to the bar, finally beginning to recognise what this place had been.

The barman, wiping down the surface with an old cloth barely grunted when he didn't specify his drink beyond tossing money on the bar for "a pint", and nodded towards the rickety staircase at the back of the room when Alex asked after his boss. That in itself answered a question that had occasionally arisen in his mind on dark, lonely nights: what do spies do when they retire? The odds of his boss being recognised by name by just any bartender was low. The gun under the apron had been another hint, like the concealed carries around the room, and the panic button under the bar another. The thickened door, the bulletproof glass on the windows, the cameras. He swung the door to the private room open with more noise than he'd normally make. Silence, he'd found, wasn't appreciated by his boss.

"Run by one of us for all of us?" he slid his beer onto the table and pulled up a chair as his steely eyes flicked between the two women. "I'd like to register my interest."

Zara's eyes ran up and down Alex, noting the lack of piercings, the leather jacket, the dirt at the cuf- "Is that blood?" she blurted, before she could stop herself.

"Fuck." Alex plucked at his shirt sleeve mournfully as he tossed his leather jacket onto the back of his chair, "It takes forever to get the stains out."

"Rider." Her tone of voice suggested Tulip Jones was less impressed with her wayward agent.

His eyes flicked up and down the two of them as he sprawled himself casually at the third seat on the table, "I presume this is who you wanted me to meet." He stuck his hand across the table, "I'm Alex. I work with Mrs Jones."

"At the bank?" Zara arched an eyebrow, clearly amused, "Which department do you work in?"

"Collections and acquisitions mostly, though I've been known to do a little negotiating." Mrs Jones sunk her head into her hands as his voice dropped into what she'd dubbed his 'honeypot voice'. The one that she wished he could teach all of her female agents instead of just _using _it on them. "Recently I've been working extensively with the loans department on a few important deals. Overseas mostly, America."

"Anywhere nice?" Zara's voice was artfully curious, her eyes flashing with amusement that she didn't need - or want - to hide. She knew the game, and she knew that Alex - or Rider, as he'd been introduced - knew that she knew the game. Even if it was one that she didn't get to play much.

"Chicago, New York. A little sojourn in Washington too. You might have heard about that one. Big American contract." He leant across the table, his voice low, "You might even have seen that one in the pa-"

Zara's eyes widened involuntarily and her hand whipped out and caught his wrist before he could withdraw it, "That was you?"

"You didn't think it was any of the Alphabets did you?" He snorted, "They wouldn't know the trigger from the bullet if they weren't brought up to shoot anything that moves."

The table was silent for a second before Mrs Jones picked up the conversation from where the CHERUB director's question had left it shattered in pieces. "Though I suppose introductions are barely necessary, as you've both heard of each other, Alex, this is Zara Asker. She runs the CHERUB program over at MI5. Zara, this is Alex Rider. He is one of our best." Tulip's eyes glanced briefly at the both of them as she adjusted her drink on the table, taking a breath, "Though he sometimes does let it get to his head, it is possible that he _is_ our best agent. Bar none. How many operations is it now Alex?"

"Before or after I give you the memory stick?" He wilted at the sharp look she sent him, "Seventy-three successes. One termination."

Zara raised an eyebrow, "How old are you?"

He winced, "Classifi-"

"She's cleared for it." Tulip's voice cut him off, before noting the look of awkwardness on his face and rolling her eyes, "He's eighteen, Zara. One of Blunt's grand ideas."

"You've done seventy-three missions in two years?" She paused, "I wasn't aware that there were that many people that Six wanted to spy on."

"I've done more than that." His voice was calm and controlled, but Zara could see the underlying tension in his voice, "As I said. I get rented out overseas. They aren't counted officially. I'd guess it's somewhere north of two hundred if you include wetwork."

"You're joking."

"About the wetwork?" He pulled his jacket to one side, just enough to let her see the concealed carry more clearly, "Unfortunately not. Though, obviously, not in this country. We all know that the British government wouldn't sanction assassinations on home soil."

Zara's sarcasm was so obvious that Tulip winced, "Obviously."

"And it isn't exactly two years either." His eyes flickered over to his boss, who was drinking her tea once more. "Closer to five."

"Five this July isn't it?" Mrs Jones put her teacup down, the slight hollow clinking informing Alex that she had finished, "And I believe that the unofficial count is at two hundred and forty-seven, including today."

Zara snorted, "You expect me to believe that there's an agent that has done operations nearly weekly since he was 14, including wetwork, and no one has noticed?"

"I didn't say no one had noticed." Alex butted back in, "Which is exactly why we're here. As you should know."

"Tulip just told me she had something for me." She glared at the young agent, "She didn't mention it included child assassins."

"Trained by SCORPIA too." Mrs Jones' interjections were becoming less than useful, "No one can say that Alex hasn't had one of the more diversified training programs we've ever seen."

"That doesn't help. Why should I let one of my agents be involved in this?"

Alex coughed, drawing her attention back to him. "Maybe you'd like to hear what we'd like to borrow your agent for?"

"This is going to be good." Her sarcasm was coming back in biting force, "An assassin and the head of an organisation who stopped talking to me for three months because she thought CHERUB was a step too far has an operation to give to the head of the largest child spy organisation in the world. What the fuck do you want me to lend you an agent for?"

The young man had the courtesy to look slightly embarrassed, "Would you believe that I really, _really_ need a flatmate?"

Zara's mouth opened, then closed, her head slowly turning back to Mrs Jones, who wasn't smiling, or laughing, but simply watching her with an expectant face. Her mouth opened again before she collapsed into laughter.

Alex blinked. It wasn't quite what he was expecting.

In between gales of laughter, Zara managed to stumble her way through the sentence, "The best assassin in the country wants a flatmate and comes to me. Excuse me whilst I piss myself laughing." She paused again, trying to gather herself, before bursting into laughter, "I hope you didn't put an ad in the paper - 'teenage assassin seeks future live-in assistant."

He lifted a hand, "I don't think you understand. It isn't an assistant I want or any help. I just need someone to look after the house when I'm not around and it has to be someone with clearance."

She sobered up, staring at him, "You're serious?"

"I am the highest ranked agent of one of the most secretive subdivisions in one of the more clandestine divisions of an agency that is involved in operations at the highest level of security _and_ importance." He lifted an eyebrow, "The files in my office could quite literally topple the country overnight at times. Putting aside the fact that my case history alone would raise some interesting questions, and I'd required flatmates to be informed lest anything significant occur."

"You want me to give you a flatmate?" Zara shook her head incredulously, "That's it?"

"Obviously they'd have to be trained in personal combat, preferably with weapons experience as well. Guns, knives, anything else you've got. Calm and confident under pressure, personable, quiet. Preferably clean and tidy. Proven track record would be best." He shrugged, "We can organise sufficient clearance for the right person, but someone who has past experience working with Five or Six would be preferred." There was a brief pause as he thought through everything he'd just listed, "Experience with French would be excellent too, or willingness to learn. Though from what I understand about CHERUB training, that shouldn't be an issue."

Zara's eyes coasted up and down his suit once more, eyes lingering on the bloodstain on the shirt cuff. "And what do they get out of it?"

"Full funding for university of their choice, so long as it's within the Russell Group. Free room in a fully stocked apartment, the opportunity to train alongside an experienced agent." Mrs Jones had cut smoothly into the conversation, "Fast track opportunities within the business should they prove to be interested and capable. Agent Rider would have the ability to make the appropriate referral where appropriate."

"So why do they have to be female?" Zara stared at the agent across the table from her, "Is there an expectation there? I will not serve up my agents to b-"

"No." Alex cut across her calmly, but clearly, his voice resonating clearly. "But it would make the creation of a cover story somewhat easier if we were a young couple moving closer to the university that she was studying at whilst I worked abroad. There's no expectation. And I prefer quieter people, who tend to be female."

"And why French?"

"Safe language." Zara's eyes narrowed as Alex continued, "It's one of the few languages I never have cause to use on a mission, and one of the few countries where I am explicitly not welcome." Tulip coughed, covering what Zara was sure was probably a laugh.

"French is a non-issue. There was a craze a year or two back and everyone learnt it." She paused, before reaching into her bag. "As it turns out, there's someone chafing at the bit to get out of CHERUB's campus a few months early. We could release her on this assignment as a graduation exercise. A final goodbye, passing her onto you. That kind of thing." She paused, the folder half out of her bag, "I do have some reservations, but given the relatively simple nature of the assignment and a guarantee that you'll provide suitable cover and sufficient training, I won't hesitate to recommend this agent to you."

She tossed the folder across to Alex, who read through it briefly. "Lauren Adams." He tried the name out, flicking briefly through a school transcript, a list of operations she'd participated on. "Seems reasonable enough. I like her hair, dyed I presume?" He passed it across to his boss, not really needing an answer, before standing up, "Please. Excuse me for a second. I'd like to go get another drink."

He rapidly crossed the room, slipping through the door like a ghost, gone before Zara glanced across the table at the empty chair and laughed. Tulip arched an eyebrow at her before joining in the amusement, both of them having noted the nearly untouched drink. "I told you that he'd notice if you brought an agent." She tapped the folder. "You didn't really have to give him this to drive it home."

Zara arched an eyebrow, "True, but where would the fun be if I didn't?"

The bar was essentially unchanged from when Alex had left it, from the disgruntled man he'd just got a glass off of to the woman at the back of the room looking for all the world as if she was reading away on her Kindle. Waving his hand at the barman, he threw down his cash and glanced around the room. She'd moved, as he'd expected, and she was underneath the window, which she'd propped open. The lady in the little black dress. What a cliche.

Collecting the drinks from the still-silent bartender, his steps led him directly towards her artfully unaware shoulders, before he reached out one careful finger and tapped her lightly on the shoulder, firing a sentence off in Russian, "_Excuse me miss, have you seen anyone called Lauren pass by?_"

Absentmindedly as she hit a couple of buttons on the Kindle, she replied without glancing up, in the same language, "_I haven't seen anyone pass by."_

Alex smirked, before switching to French, "_That's a pity. I've been told she's down here somewhere. Maybe I could talk to you until she arrives."_

The woman's head shot up, meeting his eyes, before her eyes did a quick once-over, not too dissimilar from Zara's, also lingering for a second on the faint blood stain on the sleeve. Fucking bloodstains. She smiled slowly, before replying in a language he recognised as one of the African dialects, even if he didn't speak it. He shook his head slightly, indicating he didn't speak the language, and she laughed before repeating it in Japanese, "_Would you like to settle on a language or are we going to work our way through all of them in the meantime?"_

He parked himself firmly at her table, switching over to German, "_I've found it's far better to use a wide variety of languages."_

"_Is there a reason you're bothering me?"_ Welsh. Alex blinked. That one wasn't in her file.

"_Let's not play games. We both know you're Lauren."_ Spanish. Her smile was slowly growing, both on her face and on him. It was, he noted, infectious.

"_Are you planning on trying to prove that?_" She'd passed back to French before she repeated it in Italian when he raised an eyebrow.

"_Do I really need to? Besides, isn't this display enough? How many women come to this pub and speak this many languages this well whilst wearing a dress as good as that one?"_ He indicated what was, quite appropriately, a little black dress. It didn't have the most fabric under which to hide a gun, but as Alex knew far too well, women could fit all kinds of things basically anywhere. He'd long since given up on presuming that any woman didn't have at least two guns secreted away on their person unless they were quite literally naked. And even then they normally managed to have one somewhere.

She closed the Kindle cover firmly, pushing it to the edge before leaning towards the man, "_Do you really think that you're the only one that speaks this many languages?_"

"_No."_ He sat down opposite her and leant forward too, "_But I'm the only one that knows why you haven't taken more than a mouthful of your drink all night._"

"_Then I hardly need ask who you are, do I, Mr Rider?_"

His eyes widened for a second before he switched back to English, "You know that doing that is considered very rude in most parts of our business I hope."

"Of course." She smirked, her drink in her hand, "But where would we be if we paid attention to what was considered rude?"

"Did you hear it all?"

"I heard enough." She shrugged, the fabric of her dress rippling, the hem of it riding up a little, the soft cream of her thighs gleaming in the lig... Alex blinked, dragging his eyes back up to her amused face as she continued, "I hope you like London."

"Imperial?"

"University College."

"Medicine. I presume." He paused, "I'm surprised that an agent has such an interest in the greater world."

Her legs crossed, her feet touching his, her eyes staring at his, "Some of us like to offer things more to the world than paperwork for admin staff."

"How's your first aid?"

"Looking for someone to treat your bullet wounds?"

"And maybe to spar. Got to keep my skills in order."

"Second dan Karate." Her smile was smug, "And I'm sure you know the rest."

"Kitty has claws." He reached across the table, placing the second drink on her half of the table, "Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Pet dog?"

"Older brother".

"I hope he's house-trained."

"His girlfriend keeps him in shape, but they'll probably want to check you over".

"I'll have you know that Alex Starbright is a well-known established member of the community, with philanthropic links, charity work an-"

Footsteps down the stairs cut him off, "-and James Adams is one of my organization's most recent successes, no matter the shadows that overlaid parts of his career within my agency." Zara paused, eyeing up the obviously amused Lauren before letting her eyes linger once more on the bloodstains damaging the fabric of his shirt, "And if you want to live with Lauren Adams, I suggest you find a better cover story. James is like a dog."

"You throw him a bone, a bitch and something to chase and then he's happy?"

Lauren snorted. "More like he gets a sniff of you and has to find out everything about you."

"And the single, educated, successful male living with his baby sister is a threat I suppose."

"The ruffian without a reasonable backstory, appearing out of nowhere, seducing his little sister into living in sin with him?" She smirked, "I'd be surprised if you didn't get at least a daily visit."

"You make it sound so terrible."

"Of course." She picked up the drink, "I'll take the assignment, on three conditions."

Zara stepped forwards, raising a hand, "We haven't even offered it to you yet!"

"Please." Alex shot her a look, slightly pitying, "You brought her along to the meeting and let her bug you. You were pretty sure she was going to take it even before you gave me her file."

"You read my file?" A tiny sip of her drink, enough to test it, then another one, slightly more. Cautious nature, Alex presumed. "And you were talking about how rude I was listening in."

"I glanced at the picture. And a few other things." He settled down into his seat a bit more, "Tell me your conditions."

"Condition one, it's a nice house. With at least two bedrooms."

"That was a given." Alex shrugged, "If you're set on Imperial we could even move back into my old place. It's in Chelsea. Nice four bedroom place. All the bells and whistles, including a gun cabinet in the guest bedroom. Ten-minute walk to campus"

She nodded, somehow managing to make it an alluring move, despite its brevity, drawing his eyes to her neckline again, even as she continued. "Condition two, you take me shopping. And out to dinner at least once a week."

Zara's objections were silenced by a stern glance from Mrs Jones as Alex stared calculatingly across the table at the brunette spy girl. "Does it have to be dinner?"

"It has to be a date. We're going to be a cohabiting couple. I have expectations."

"You know I'll be busy some weeks with work."

"And unless you're out of the country seven nights a week, I'm sure you can find a single night to have a sit-down meal."

"What if I don't?"

"Then I hope you like ballet for the following." Seeing Alex wince, her mouth twitched again, "And I've always wanted to go to the opera if you muck it up twice."

"Fine." He sighed, "A date. Of some kind. Every week. For our cover." He raised a finger warningly, "Just don't go complaining if it isn't some fancy restaurant every week."

She met his eyes for a minute before nodding in acceptance, "And my third condition is, of course, that you meet my parents. We're going to be living together. Unless you're planning on telling my crime lord mother that her daughter is a live-in bodyguard and medic for one of the most dangerous men in the country, who probably dismantl-"

"There is no proof of that!" Mrs Jones cut in, looking absolutely horrified, "We would never use an asset like Alex on our own soil. It would be irresponsible to step on the toes of another agency. We are solely responsible for external affairs."

"Like Cornwall?" Lauren raised an eyebrow at the much older woman.

"Yes, like Cornwall." Mrs Jones paused for a second realising what she'd just admitted, "Which barely counts as England. It was definitely our jurisdiction. It's not in London."

"Heathrow?"

"Barely in London."

"The science museum?"

Mrs Jones twitched a little. "All lies concocted by a desperate media."

Alex coughed, hiding a laugh, "If we're in agreement then?"

Lauren took one last look up and down him, before nodding and holding out a hand, "Done."

And without another word to either of their handlers, the two agents began walking towards the door.

Mrs Jones and Zara blinked, before looking at each other with identical looks of slight worry, thinking exactly the same thing: "why did _anyone _think this might be a good idea?"


	2. Chapter 2

"I like the house," Lauren shouted up the stairs as she let her suitcase roll to a halt. "It's very understated. Nothing ostentatious."

Alex appeared at the top of the stairs, tight white t-shirt and comfortable jeans and all, "The agency invests your salary if you're regularly out of the country. That and the danger pay add up if you work for a while."

"And you said this was yours?" Lauren sauntered forward, eyeing up the wooden furnishings, "I hadn't realised that even the top agents were able to splash this kind of money around."

"My dad." He reached out and pulled her into a hug briefly before waving her onwards into the kitchen, "And my uncle actually. Family tradition to serve the country in the most disgustingly clandestine way possible."

"I can see why you didn't bring it up at dinner."

It had been nearly two months since they shook hands and agreed in principle to the arrangement, and things were moving quickly. By which Lauren meant that Alex had turned up in the fanciest looking car she had ever wanted to drive, rang the doorbell at CHERUB campus accommodation, and whisked her away to their first promised date before Zara had even had time to ring Tulip and work out just how Alex had the address. As he said: it would be far better for them to find out whether or not they were 'compatible' before they moved into the same house, no matter how big or how much space they were being given.

In terms of the business practicalities, it had taken the better part of the last two months for even the most basic of agreements to be made between the two agencies. Unused to working together, especially on something of this nature, it had descended into what Alex described as a pissing match between two drunks on different streets, who aren't quite sure how scoring such contests normally worked.

Reassurances of danger levels and 'threat assessments' were causing warning bells to ring for those amongst the CHERUB committee, whilst MI6 remained quietly bemused that anyone thought that they could tell an 18-year old agent of a half dozen years what to do. If Lauren couldn't handle living in London by herself, then what could she do? Surely their training encouraged some form of independence or competence?

In short, they were both being relentlessly smothered by their employers, even before you considered the heightening pressure from friends and family on both sides for the two to introduce them. Even for those who knew that it was just a 'cover' that they were moving in together, a general presumption of some level of mutual interest had been made. Lauren, citing a big mouth and small brain, had banned anyone from telling her brother the exact details.

"You can't splash all the dirty laundry around when you meet a girl." Alex hefted the suitcase casually with one hand, and started carrying it up the stairs, "She might get scared away before she moves in."

Lauren scowled for a second. The suitcase was heavy. She knew that - Alex was just making it look far too easy. Then she sighed, what did she expect? He was slightly older, and spent hours at the gym every day to "keep in shape". Which, for one of the best intelligence operatives in the country, seemed to include eating healthy, doing an obscene amount of exercise and offering high level martial art classes at local dojos.

She eventually settled on getting more pesky details out of the way. "Is there anything I need to know about the house? Secret rooms? Armories? Dungeons?"

"The cellar has a containment room, there's a weapon in most rooms if you know where to look and I'll show you the safe room once we've got your stuff in." Alex didn't even turn his head as he settled the suitcase inside a room with floral decorations, white sheets and freshly plumped pillows. "But for now, this is your room. It's been a long time since anyone was in here, but we're fairly sure that we managed to get rid of all the guns that crept in over the years. If you find anything, let us know and we'll deal with it."

Lauren's eyes were drawn to a photograph stuck to the wall almost immediately. A boy with sandy blonde hair hugging a laughing woman with scarlet red hair. "Is this you?" She ran a finger across the photo, clearing away some of the dust. "She looks nice. Who was she?"

Alex tensed for a second before joining her, lifting the photo gently off the wall. "That's Jack. She died. A mission gone horribly horribly wrong. Once my parents died and I moved in with my Uncle, she looked after me. Basically brought me up. Eventually she got caught up in my shit of course. Everything went to hell after that."

A hesitant hand squeezed his shoulder for a second. "She sounds great."

"Yeah." He put the photo back on it's hook and examined at it for an instant before turning away, "She was full of life. If not for everything I like to think I would have kept in touch with her once she went back to America. She was planning on it. Didn't ever tell me, but I found the papers after her death. Hadn't renewed her visa now that I was old enough to look after myself. Had things to do, family to be with."

There was a respectful silence for a moment before Alex left. "You've got more stuff out in your car right?"

Lauren shouted after him to confirm and began unpacking her suitcase. It took her nearly a whole minute until she remembered just who was helping her to move down to London and froze. "Shit."

James looked up and down the sandy-haired man with a grimace. This was the best his sister could do? Some pansy ass man who spent too much time at the gym and probably had some big fancy job? "You must be Alex."

"You're James I presume. The brother?" Alex offered his hand out for a minute, before deciding that given the glower he was receiving it was unlikely to be taken up. "What are you up to these days?"

"I'm in the military. And you know what that means?" James stepped closer, into Alex's personal space. "That means I know some very dangerous people. And if you touch one hair on Lauren's head then we will group up and hunt you down and beat you unt-"

"James!" Lauren's voice cut through the impending testosterone like a whip, deflating her brother. "You'll have to excuse him Alex. He hasn't managed to learn how to talk to people like a reasonable human being yet."

"It's perfectly alright Lauren." Alex smiled a cold smile, "I'd like to know more about these dangerous men that he can convince to go out of their base and beat up people for fun. Don't stop him now."

It was impossible to say whether it was the sudden drop in temperature, or the warning tone in his voice, but James found himself taking a step back, the hairs at the back of his neck creeping upwards, his pulse beating a fast tempo underneath his skin, adrenaline starting to pump into his system.

"I suggest you two start over." Lauren stepped inside the two of them and turned to Alex. "Don't let his idiocy stand between you. I would like you to get along with my brother."

Alex sighed and relaxed, letting the smile become something a little more genuine and a little less dangerous. "_Does he speak French?_" he asked first, before continuing in the same language, "_You know I'm more than happy to try to make this work. It's not me who decided to be rude this time_"

Pinwheeling on the spot, Lauren marched up to her brother and poked him in the chest with a finger, "Behave! Or I'll stop talking to you until Christmas."

The two men eyed each other up as she stormed back into the house, another suitcase rattling on it's wheels behind her. There was an awkward silence, before James took a deep breath and offered his hand, "Sorry about that. It's just all been a bit fast really. One second she's at her boarding school and looking for a university, the next she's got a place at Imperial, she's moving in with some guy she's barely mentioned, and our mother is speaking about how great this guy is."

A firm handshake is often the start of a great friendship. Alex was careful not to squeeze too tight as he accepted the proffered truce. "Yeah, it's been a bit of a whirlwind for me too. When she said that she wanted to go to Imperial, I couldn't bear to see her in that shit that they peddle as student accommodation." He indicated the house, "My family passed away a few years back and left me with everything, including the house."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Was it expected?"

"Tragic accidents. My parents were on the plane that was bombed leaving Heathrow Airport about fifteen years ago. And, well, then it was just me and my Uncle. He got hit by a lorry, went through the windshield." Alex shrugged, "It was a matter of time really. They were both daredevils. Both risk-takers. Probably better for them to have something quick than to have their death dragged out painfully by illness."

"Your uncle must have had a nice job. Banker?"

"So they tell me. Some kind of financial trader." Alex pulled a suitcase out of the car and indicated the house, "You want to have a look at your sister's room? I put her in the better guest room. It's further away, nice and quiet for me."

There was a moment of hesitation, a moment where James tried to work out exactly what the implications of that were before he gave up and pulled himself together, "Sure. I'll grab the last suitcase shall I?"

The car lights flashed behind them as James hurried to catch up with Alex. "Alex, what do you do exactly? Lauren hasn't been the clearest."

"I'm a civil servant." Alex held the door open, revealing the decorative interior, "I do the legwork for diplomatic trips. Planning, preparation. Travel the world, meet exciting people, deal with politicians."

"Met anyone famous?" They were halfway up the stairs now, bags in tow, "Anyone I'd recognise?"

"Do you remember that console a few years back? The one that had the big launch in London and then flitted away?" James nodded, eager for Alex to continue, "Yeah, I was involved with that. One of the first things I got involved with actually. They needed a teenager at the launch night to demonstrate the console, and there I was. Intern on duty, and the youngest person in the building. The guy was a nutter though."

"You're joking! You're the kid that made that game look easy?" James had vague memories of the launch night. A mother looking for new things that might be popular with her black market clientele at Christmas was always willing to share her thoughts with everyone else. "That launch debacle was enough for my mum to steer clear of it. Said the crazy guy was - and I quote - fucking stupid."

"Oh really? What does she do?" Alex took the opportunity of being in front of James to smile to himself. "I didn't know she was into video games."

There was an awkward pause before James recovered, "She, er, just wanted to give us a few presents I guess. She works in acquisitions for a family business."

They went up the stairs in a more companionable fashion, exchanging meaningless small-talk couched in the vaguest of terms. There were no deceptions on James' part - Alex had checked up on him before letting him near the house - but it seemed that careful avoidances had become somewhat of an art-form for Lauren's brother. He was going through SAS selection at the moment, but dismissed it as a minor promotion. He'd served a tour in one of the more stressful operating zones, but the pressure had been left behind. Trained as a spy, but polite enough to ignore the little things dotted around the house that screamed of danger to people with the right skills - though, Alex admittedly privately, there was a good chance that James had just not noticed. The constant edge of paranoia that kept MI6's finest alive in the field seemed to be something CHERUB neglected, presumably in favour of being able to reintegrate children into society once they were done using them.

All in all, Alex approved. Both of James and of CHERUB. It was evil, but compared to the untold evil placed at the centre of his career, it seemed more like a necessary one. He mentioned as much to Lauren over dinner, once James had left, "Your guys seem pretty good with the rest of you."

She paused, swallowing before speaking, "I can't say I have any complaints. They work us hard, but we get good training. 100 days of basic, 60 hours a week of classroom lessons, plus dojo and fitness. I think that Zara reckons the busier we are, the less likely we are to sneak off campus and get blind drunk."

"You know what I got?" Alex smiled ruefully, "About two weeks with the SAS and an afternoon appointment with their gadget master. A few days later, I was jumping out of a helicopter with a gun I'd stolen from a man that tries to kill me in an attempt to prevent the genocide of children in Britain by shooting the prime minister."

Lauren winced, then levelled a fork menacingly across the table, "I'd best get a meeting with this gadget master. The most we ever got was a hidden microphone. I want an exploding pen. And an ejector seat on my car."

"Did I ever tell you about the bike he sent me?"

Weeks passed with good humour as Lauren settled into life in London. A selection of restaurants received their patronage as they made time for each other, but in truth it didn't really seem needed. Alex had managed to secure a breather to review his paperwork, and was around most evenings once he'd finished at the office. They saw enough of each other to keep things ticking along, and whilst they didn't fall madly in love, their cover wasn't strained at all. Honesty, openness, communication. It kept things easily going along.

Until, one day, Agent Rider opened the front door.

"I'll be away the next week or so. A number of opportunities have appeared for the intelligence services, and they want me to resolve them." He shrugged helplessly, "Sorry I won't be here to see you start at Imperial. Duty calls."

"Anything you can talk about?"

"Nothing much." Agent Rider disassembled the sniper rifle in the cabinet with efficiency, putting each piece into its place in an obviously tailor-made suitcase. "A few old business partners are visiting Rome, and we saw a chance to return their portfolios."

"Anything I should know?" She looked down at his out-reached hand to see a gun. "Oh."

"If anyone comes calling for me, make sure you give them a proper hello for me." He disappeared into his room, unbuttoning his shirt, "You should be fine. If you need any help, you know where the panic buttons are. This should be pretty routine."

"I meant more about what _you're_ doing than the wild parties I'm throwing in your townhouse."

"Do you really want to know?" Alex's sandy head peeked from round the corner, "I mean, you can ask."

"Who is it?"

"Two men. A banker, a fixer. Kings of the underworld poking their heads into the daylight for a matter of hours. It's our only chance."

"And you're going there to gather intelligence? Establish facts?"

"I prefer to think of it as creating opportunities." He reached past her and picked up another handgun, sliding it into a shoulder holster as he slipped a jacket on. "And perhaps giving someone else some facts to establish."

Lauren rocked back on her heels, realising what he meant. Her voice sounded suddenly flat, even to her, "You're going to kill them. Just like that?"

He paused, his eyes flicking up and down, noticing her defensiveness. "Lauren. This is my job. I get a phone call. I get on a plane. I sit in some cold empty apartment block facing another cold empty apartment block, and when the right person walks in front of me, I get to choose." He wrapped his hand around her shoulder, "Do I pull the trigger, or do I put my rifle away?"

His eyes hardened, seeing to bore down into her, "They aren't criminals, they aren't terrorists. They are the people that organise criminals; the people that create terrorists. There's no suitcase full of money waiting for me down a dark alley, there's no Machiavellian mastermind in some ivory tower. No secret societies, no swivel chairs, no big monologues. There they are, here society is, and I'm standing right here, in their way, waiting. You only get one choice in my job, and I make the one that counts."

Alex's hand cut through the air passionately, "I know CHERUB disagrees with direct action, but this is how we stop the apocalypse. Sometimes you have to do a controlled burn, set a fire to stop the cities from burning down. I'm just the first spark."

Lauren met his eyes, "That's what you tell yourself?"

He sighed, then released her, picking up his suitcase. "I have a flight in forty-five minutes. Don't burn down the house."

The door slammed shut behind him, dust falling from the ceiling as the frame shook. She rubbed her forehead, collapsing on the bottom stair of the hallway, staring through the frosted glass towards the street.

Alex was a murderer.

She'd read his file, of course. It had been somewhere in the briefing, somewhere amidst the CHERUB risk assessment. Alex was a killer. That was his job. Dealing in death. Beneath the charm, the smile, the easy-going attitude…. She wrapped her arms around her legs as she pulled them up, leaning against the wall.

Her eyes fell on the gun, still held in her hands, and the feeling of emptiness suddenly inside her intensified. Had she ever been fond of them? She couldn't remember. The cold steel weight felt like lead wrapped around a balloon attached to her heart. She forced herself to her feet, into the living room, onto the sofa.

The TV was on, but it was just noise. She dropped the gun on the coffee table, knocking her university syllabus across the floor. Her eyes tracked it, and for a second she found herself with enough enthusiasm to pick it up and go back to flicking through it. Like she'd been doing before he came in and she went off to say hello and see what they were grabbing for dinner. And like that, the enthusiasm was gone, and the syllabus was tossed back onto the floor.

He'd just gone. That's what struck her most. He'd gone out Alex, and come back Rider. In and out in under twenty minutes, barely stopping to give her a gun. Was that what it meant to serve your country? A budding friendship - relationship? - thrown aside in an instance to jump on a plane to another country.

Date night was tomorrow. She snorted. Ballet, opera. It seemed like a good joke at the time, but he'd taken her seriously. Now she knew why. She took a deep breath and forced herself to her feet, forced herself through checking the weapon. This was her job, feelings or not. Protect the house. Keep the agent company. Don't spill any secrets.

It took a good thirty minutes for her to feel normal. To pick up the phone and give her old CHERUB friend, Kelly, a ring. Talk about her day, talk about her week. Mention how she was getting ready for her first lecture - that first day in the big wide world. A pizza delivery, a tub of ice cream, some trash TV. It was almost enough to forget that Alex was out there on his way to Italy, gun in a briefcase, mission in mind.

She wondered for a moment if she could ever have done it. Become an agent, joined the adult intelligence services. Her eyes gazed into the distance. She'd done plenty of operations, worked all kinds of groups, even met a few of the agents that she might have ended up training under. She'd been good at her job, but she had a niggling feeling things got a bit more serious once you were old enough to have a proper passport.

CHERUB cared, was what she decided on, pen absently tapping against the table as she ignored the prep work she was supposed to be doing. Even now, she could pick up the phone and talk to a mission controller. If it got too much, she could get out. She'd vanish; name, identity, appearance. Not enough that no one could track her, but enough that no one would bother.

Alex? She got the feeling he'd never really had that option. Odd snippets of conversation came to mind - him being abandoned in a school in France, his backup ignoring his call for help. Or worse, the mission controllers ignoring his concerns: how many stories started with him saying that they'd refused to do anything? He waved it off, passing it off with self-deprecation and some eyebrow-raising tale of heroic success against the odds. Perhaps she should have chased it a little more?

Another deep breath helped her cut through the memories as she focused on the now. Was this it? Was this the moment she realised too much was too much? Zara had suggested as much when she left campus, hinting at a second option for her if it needed to happen, if something didn't click with Alex, with Agent Rider. But slowly, surely, emptiness turned into anger.

He'd gone, he'd left, the day before their date. A mediocre apology, a dressing down when she asked some questions, and a gun she didn't even fucking like. Lauren scowled at the TV and turned it off. Fuck this. Fuck lying around feeling like everything had spiralled out of control.

Alex was a killer.

She knew that coming in. They'd mentioned it over and over. She knew what that meant. The ability to step back, to dehumanise a target, to pull a trigger. Fuck them for making him into that. She'd spoken to him, she knew him. The jokes and laughs weren't fake because he had a job she disagreed with and a boss she was slowly coming to view as bitterly, disappointedly, inadequate. He hadn't mentioned support, he hadn't mentioned back-up. Though, she supposed, that might be because she hadn't asked.

Honestly she expected it to be as inadequate as any prior support for him though. Not there, useless if it was, and more of an obstacle than anything useful.

It was a matter of minutes later, as she fumed on the sofa, that she realised she was supposed to be part of the solution to the entire mess that was Alex's professional relationship with MI6; part of that adequate support she felt he so dearly lacked. Scowling, she picked up the gun and checked it again, before stalking through the house to secure it properly. Bolts slid across, locking the windows, the doors. The study was already locked, but she checked it twice, along with the front door, and the alarm system. She knew the cameras were rolling, but she checked that too. Then she stormed upstairs, lying on top of her bed staring at the ceiling.

Three days passed before there was any news, during which Lauren sulked at the back of lectures, her nerves going haywire at every slammed door, every passing stranger that brushed slightly too close to her. And then just a brief announcement on the evening news that two bodies had been found in an apartment in Italy, one of whom was a man of some prominence. There wasn't enough information to be sure, but Lauren had been trained to _be_ sure.

The doorbell rang a few hours later, and she found the gun in her hand before she mentally registered the fact she'd picked it up. "Who is it?"

"It's Alex." He sounded tired, resigned almost. "It's done. I'm home." He walked in and collapsed on the sofa, dropping his briefcase by the door like it was a coat, or a pair of shoes. Some sundry that was best ignored whenever possible.

She drew a breath, about to vent the frustration that still lurked at the back of her mind, and then paused, looking down at him. "You okay?"

"I will be." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I got us tickets. Ballet, right?"

"Really. Alex." She stepped towards him, trying to convey some level of comfort ."I mean it. You okay?"

He let the smile drop as he met her eyes. "There were some tense moments. It wasn't clean. My backup turned out to be…well. I got out, completed the objectives. Two less monsters in the shadows."

Lauren almost interrupted to argue the point, before she realised it really wasn't the time. A dinner conversation perhaps? Philosophy with a side of pasta, all washed down with wine.

Alex's eyes stared into the unseeable distance for a second before a more gentle, a more real, smile found its way onto his lips. "But I'm going to be fine. Really. I'm home."

And if she found herself stealing his hand and examining it thoroughly whilst they watched some trash TV in companionable silence, Lauren hoped no one noticed that Alex didn't complain once about it.


	3. Chapter 3

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The clock was driving Agent Rider crazy.

_Tick. Tock. Tick._

It had a stutt- _Tock_.

It had a stutter. Just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to be frustrating unless you- _Tick. Tock. _-unless you were forced to sit - in sil-_T_i_ck_-ence - for three days in an emp-_Tock_-ty room, watching across the street for a man who fitted the vaguest of vague descriptions to meet with a woman best known for her ability to screw the secrets out of the world's stupidest men.

By which Alex meant politicians.

He presumed anyone who believed that they were fit to run a government was fundamentally flawed, and probably shouldn't be allowed into power. He was a cynic, with far too much experience of red tape and paperwork to be convinced that politics was anything but trouble.

_Tick Tock_.

It said somewhere in the agent handbook that agents should look after their mental health. It didn't go much further than that - MI6 didn't exactly have any great ideas as to how to prevent psychotic breaks in their employees, as evidenced by the fact that the entirety of their senior management was insane. It was, however, very clear. Agents could take steps to minimise aggravating factors in their mental health.

Which perhaps left the question of wh- _Tick. -_why Alex hadn't bothered to deal with the bloo-_Tock_-dy clock.

Really, it was quite simple: Lauren left a message at 5pm every day that he was out of the country.

He couldn't exactly answer the phone and have a chat whilst he was on assignment, but he wasn't going to turn down the only human voice that wasn't going to be screaming threats, orders or other nonsense at him in the next two weeks. Because, oh yes, he was here for the long stint.

_Tick. Tock._

_Tick. Tock._

_Tick. Tock._

It was a beautiful country. Lauren had said so before he left, and he couldn't deny that she was right. Bulgaria had retained enough of its unspoilt landscape to be breathtaking. When you weren't sat in an apartment block staring at the street, waiting for some people to show up.

This was the worst kind of mission. Multiple agencies, multiple targets, and at least two sets of conflicting instructions. MI6 thought that the woman was too dangerous. The CIA objected to anyone killing an American citizen on principal, unless you asked them quietly, in which case they had admitted that so long as there were no witnesses then as far as they were concerned the woman had just vanished on one of her annual trips to Moscow.

Alex wasn't really sure what counterintelligence did either, other than write the reports that he skimmed through on his plane flights around the world. Truth be told, he was coming to realise that he didn't really know a lot about a lot of things that just kind of happened at MI6. He trusted that they were right and, most of the time, they were.

When they weren't, he improvised.

_Tick. Tock._

Like now, for example, where they had no idea what the male contact looked like. He hadn't brought a rifle with him on this sojourn into madness. It was going to be close, and personal. Fast, furious, hot and sweaty, personal, intimate. Foreign men were not exactly his preference for such situations.

There was a time not too long ago when he would have relished the challenge. He had already been venturing out to tidy up some loose ends. It was rare for friendly agencies to have an agent of his calibre anywhere near Sofia, and a number of sensitive operations had been punted over for him to resolve in his lunch break.

Grab a sandwich, a bottle of water, some top secret information from a broker. Stop a bank robbery, crack a safe, leave an ominous note for a man considering flipping to the wrong back to the apartment for another sixteen hours, whilst they discussed whether it was likely to result in a missed opportunity if one of his support agents watched the street for the day whilst they sent him off to Bucharest to meet with one of their assets there.

They couldn't risk it, but they were going to spend a long time talking about it anyway, just in case they could. Maybe they'd divert his flight home. Ask him to resolve the issue he'd heard about from Smithers on his way out: some crime lord starting an import business that was bringing just a few too many guns into Europe. Kosovo was always a hotbed, but this was something new and troubling.

_Tick. Tock._

He didn't relish the 'challenge' any more. The Kosovo problem had some interesting elements. Was it something to be resolved by shooting a man? Or perhaps he could just arrange for a little bit of chaos? The guns could get mislaid? Alex hadn't added to his completely legal and above board collection of firearms in a while. It needed a solution he was keen to find, and one that they were likely to let him find. There weren't many agents of his calibre. He shouldn't be that surprised that they wanted to use him. Put the world on his shoulders and point him to the mountain.

But still. A sigh escaped him. Challenge or not, the considerations were becoming mentally tiring in a way that he didn't like. He'd tried to explain it to Lauren once. She'd sat with him for a while, letting him try to explain it. It had helped a bit, and her dragging him out into London had got him out of the funk. Maybe he should take her on a date to say thank you? He'd quite enjoyed _Onegin_. Maybe another ballet wouldn't be too terrible?

_Tick. Tock._

_Tick. Tock._

A woman caught his eye. Just different enough to pass suspicion, which was a red flag when you were looking for someone "Orion to Control. Contact suspected. Lady, black bag, trainers, jeans. Approaching the hotel."

He mentally ran through the checklist as he tracked the woman towards the hotel that they suspected they would be meeting in. There was a conference on - big enough for crowds, for the anonymity of being anyone. He had his guns, one silenced, one with a kick. His combat knife pressed against his ankle like a shackle, and the wires of his radio were like chains around his chest.

"Orion to Control. Suspect entering hotel. Please confirm."

Alex's pulse began to speed up as the woman vanished into the hotel. There should have been acknowledgement immediately. Something was wrong.

His feet were taking him out the door almost before he consciously realised that he'd made a decision. He had no long-range support. He needed to get to the targets, and quickly.

Two people brushed past him as he got to the lift. He felt them turn and Alex ducked on instinct, letting his training take over. A hand with a knife swung over his head, and Orion struck before the hand could pull back. Hands locked around the wrist, twist, pull, release. Incapacitation via face to a fire extinguisher. Arm up to block the back-up attack, step inside the swing of the blade. Control the arm, step under their blow, hook a foot to get them to the ground, and stab through the neck. A blur of motion and two bodies were on the floor.

Mission compromised, and for once it definitely wasn't his fault. Control wasn't responding because they couldn't respond.

"Fuck."

He palmed a radio from inside the guy's jacket and linked his spare earpiece to listen in.

"-_onfirm?"_

_"Situation controlled. Alpha out."_

Russian. Alex supposed that answered a few questions regarding who exactly the third party was. He had no idea exactly what they wanted, but it wasn't his job to know. It was his job to make sure his objectives were cleared and the brief was clear: elimination. The targets were not permitted to leave Sofia alive.

That only left one option - complete the objectives before the Russians interfered.

_"Move to Tertiary, support Delta. Beta will join once they've neutralised the operative."_

Alex's gun was already in his hand as he made his way towards the exit, when a deeper voice made his pause in his tracks.

_"This is Beta. Pietro and Dmitri are dead. Stab wounds."_

Beta was more than two of them. Should he clear up the leftovers or push forwards to the hotel? He glanced up at the ceiling, before shaking his head. He was here to control a situation, not clean-up the dregs of the Russian intelligence services.

_"All agents. There is an operative in the area. Be aware he is armed and dangerous. We believe it may be Orion. Do not hesitate. Shoot on sight."_

Alex narrowed his eyes as he reached the front door. His gun vanished inside his jacket, and a knife slipped into his hand. Then he reached down to his purloined radio. "_Orion to all foreign agents. I am here on business. Two of your number are dead. There is no need for further bloodshed. Leave immediately."_

His steps across the street didn't falter when he noticed a man reach inside a briefcase, the gleam of a gun enough to catch his eye. Orion's accidental stumble on the pavement into the man was anything but accidental. His fist punched hard, the knife slipping under the man's jacket and driving itself deep between two ribs. His apologies and fussing over the man, who was already as good as dead, handily kept control of all the weapons, and once the man was placed on a bench, the jacket covered up the spurts of blood. Textbook, if messy. The lack of screaming crowds was probably enough of a sign that things had gone to plan.

A side entrance placed him into the hotel proper, and his mind ran through the floor plan. He'd need to sweep through the common areas, find a computer system to see what rooms were in use, and move quickly. Whichever party had an interest in either of the individuals meeting today had support, a head-start, and the willingness to start a firefight in the middle of a major city. They were either local, very good, or rich enough to bribe everyone that mattered. None of those were ideal in the circumstances.

"_You think you stand a chance?"_ Russian always sounded slightly angry, but this sounded furious. "_You are alone and outnumbered, far from home. I will find you, I will kill you, I will rip your heart out and tear you apart bit by b-"_

_"Sorry," _replied Alex in perfect Russian, "_I don't speak any Russian."_

"_Fuck you, fuck you! You fu-"_ He unhooked the earpiece and discarded as the Russian man started to rant. Enemy communications hampered, at least temporarily. Lauren was going to find it hilarious. Could he have squeezed more information from them? Perhaps. But he needed the few minutes of confusion to ensure that he could get through the hotel safely.

A confident stride was enough to get him past the lobby, the receptionists, the conference staff. He glanced around the bar as he passed through. No woman in jeans and sensible shoes. Surreptitiously, he pulled a set of picks out of his pocket and leaned against a door marked Staff. Orion needed surveillance feeds to see if he could narrow down where his targets might have ended up. Normally Operations would be handling this, but with Operations down... He rolled his eyes. It was like his first few years all over again. No support, no help, just morally questionable missions and a need to upgrade his firepower.

There was a thud around the corner, forcing Alex against a wall to listen more closely. A grunt of effort, the soft snapping of bone, a few Russian expletives. It told him everything he needed to know. He led with his gun. Body, head. Body, head. Body, head. Reload. He grimaced. The hotel staffer had a snapped neck. A pointless death, unless they had been amateur enough to be seen. And even then… Alex sighed. It was best to de-escalate, but given the tactical rifles he supposed that there clearly hadn't been much choice. Even the calmest civilian would panic if three armed foreigners burst around a corner.

The Security Office was clearly marked, but the door was already been smashed open by the time he found it. The only company was two uniforms slowing cooling down on the floor, precise bullet wounds in their head. Flabby guts. Soft palms. Civilians, or as good as. Poor bastards. Cameras, and a computer. That was convenient.

He flicked through the camera screens quickly as the staff computer loaded up. Half the cameras were throwing errors rather than feeds, which was more telling than actually being able to see anything on them. A USB stick into the decrepit computer began to bruteforce the password. It took it's time and he took the chance to work out what couldn't be seen. Basement, staff areas, third floor.

A glance at the guest list on the now-unlocked computer confirmed there were only five rooms in use on the third floor today. All unknown names, but that wasn't surprising - what self-respecting criminal booked rooms under their own name?

Alex was running late for his tête-à-tête. The Russians could already be with the target. Fast steps took him surely towards the service lift. It annoyed him that he still had no idea why they were here. Extraction? Extortion? Execution? Without more information he didn't have much choice left but to chase after them like a dog after a stick.

Could he wait in the lift for them? At the bottom? It would be like stepping into a death trap. Leaving a gift under the Christmas tree. Lauren wouldn't approve. Never a good idea.

His phone rang.

"Orion. What the hell is going on? We've been trying to raise control for nearly an hour"

"It's all going to shit. Control is down. What do you need?"

"Interpol is on the line. Mission objectives have been updated."

"They want them dead too?"

"Quite the opposite. The targets flipped. They need them out. Can you manage?"

"It's a good job you called me now. Five minutes more would have been awkward."

"Intel suggests that nothing is happening until tomorrow. You should have plenty of ti-"

"Tell that to the Russians, 'cus everyone in Sofia missed that memo." The lift dinged and Alex stepped behind a corner. "I'll call you back."

The doors slid open, and four men in tactical gear burst out. _"Clear!"_ Their rifles tracked along the corridors either side of the lift before they stepped out further. "_Roger. We'll find him. Over and out."_

Orion frowned and stepped away from the lift. Four on one wasn't good odds when they were this twitchy. He had to get ahead of the game. It would be best to control the situation before they left the hotel. He turned through a door and started climbing up the stairs.

Dialling a number from memory he slipped his earpiece back in as he started his way up. "Give me names."

"Dr Henri Graumann, male, thirty seven. Balding. He's Interpol. Deep cover. This was their long game."

"And the woman?"

"Ms Kiara Aschew. Twenty two. Striking figure. No one is quite sure who she trained with, but she wants out."

Alex darted into the second floor as he heard a noise on the stairs above. His steps took him quickly towards the front of the building and the other flight of stairs. "And the reason the Russians are here?"

"Interpol says she claims to have information that will topple the upper echelons of the Russian mafia."

"Great. They'll be twitchy then." Alex's eyes darted up the staircase, checking it was clear. "Rules of engagement?"

"The usual." That meant anything goes. "Bring them home Agent Rider."

He scanned left and right as he came up to the third floor. No one. One smashed door, and every lift going down. He was too late.

He stepped into the open room, noting the signs of a struggle. "The Russians have them. I was too slow." He moved towards the window, glancing down at the alley below. He could just see the basement car park entrance. "Do the Bulgarians know we're here yet?"

"We're not registering any unusual police traffic."

"Someone might want to give them a heads-up." Lauren was going to absolutely _murder_ him. "Things are about to get interesting."

"Orion?" There was a warning tone in the voice. "What are you doing?"

"My job." And with that, he jumped out the window.

His hands gripped onto the fire escape opposite for a breath-taking second, before he let go. Storey by storey he dropped, slowing his fall by grabbing onto the metal frame of the fire escape. Peering around the corner, he scanned the staff car park. There was a van and two cars, and enough men with guns to make him scowl. And one balding man in his thirties with one striking woman in her twenties, both bound and gagged, both being thrown into the van.

The world seemed to slow around him as he lifted his gun and began firing. Two men went down before they realised where he was firing from, and then the bullets started flying back as they scrambled towards the cars. Pressed against the ground, he crawled under the row of cars towards where the engines were stuttering to life and doors were slamming.

The roar of a car raced towards the exit.

This was it.

Now, or never.

He rolled to his feet and came up guns blazing, firing into the side of the other car. A window broke, a Russian swore, the car screeched to a halt, men pouring out of every door. Orion was in motion, vaulting over the parked car between them and into close proximity.

Ram the driver door shut, forcing the driver back inside, then control the gun that was coming out of the back-seat passenger's jacket Keep the gun low, and use the owner to block the shots from the other side of the car. Feel the body jerk as friendly fire kills. Orion noticed the driver trying to get out the door again, and slammed the car door into them again, vaulting onto the roof. Orion's gun fell into his hand and two shots controlled the situation. The car began to move under his feet, tripping him up, so he emptied the gun towards the left-hand backseat man as he rolled to balance on top of the car. Alex's hand latched grimly onto the frame of the car as it turned into the streets of Sofia.

"Orion. We're getting into traffic systems now. Did I just see you on the roof of a car? The police network has gone crazy."

Oh yeah, the phone.

"Tad busy."

"Why the hell are you on the roof of a car?"

"Why do you think?" The car door slammed shut on his fingers as the car accelerated into a corner, and he winced. That was going to be aching for days. "Do something useful and suppress the local media."

He pulled himself over the edge of the roof just as the car door was flung open by the turn of a wheel. Just him and the driver. Poor chap. A bullet through the back of the head got him out of the way before he even realised what was happening. One hand latched onto the wheel as he shoved the warm body out the driver-side door, and clambered through. "Orion to Control. I'm in a car outside the hotel car park. Give me directions."

"Are you okay?"

Alex closed his eyes for a second and sighed. He did not have time for this shit when he could hear sirens approaching. "Orion to Control. Tell me where the fucking van went."

He floored the pedal as a flashing blue light appeared in his rearview mirror. High-speed chase through the streets of a city, and a useless voice on a useless phone his only help. Screeching around a corner he took one hand off the wheel to reload.

The voice chimed back in as his speedometer started to climb. "They're going for the unopened runway at the airport."

Fan-fucking-tastic. He should have turned right, and he went left. Handbrake, tyremarks on the road, accelerator. The sirens were actually on top of him. Two sets now. Second gear, third. Glide around a corner. Third again. The targets had best be someone important.

"They're about half a mile in front of you on the motorway. Do you need more assistance?"

"Can you get the police to stand down?" His eyes flicked to the cars behind him trying to keep pace.

There was a pause. "Control to Orion. We can't get the Bulgarians on the phone."

"What about more support? Can you get an asset to the airport?" Fourth, fifth. The needle ticked round past a hundred miles an hour. Tick tock, tick tock. He could feel the clock.

"You _are _our asset in Sofia. We don't have other support this week."

"Well aren't you a load of fucking use." He wished he could bang his head against the wheel. "Get me a lawyer, the diplomat and a goddamn plane."

"Control to Orion. We'll try our best."

He could see the van as it turned down the road towards the runway and smiled grimly. Show time. By the time they were rolling through the barriers, he was accelerating down the last stretch. He crashed through the security barrier like it wasn't even there. Thank god for contractors cutting corners. If there had been anti-ram protection... A second touch of the handbrake and the car span, the rear whipping round to block the front of the van.

There was a crunch, and everything seemed to pause for a second as everyone took a deep breath, and then Orion was out the door, gun up. The second escort car. One, two. Driver shot through. Three, four. Passenger on the floor. Five, six. All threats fixed. The sound of a sliding door sent him rolling forwards, and diving around the van to the backdoor.

The echoing silence was marred by the sound of sirens, and Alex shook his head. There was his tick tock, tick fucking tock time crunch coming. Time for a risk. He pulled the backdoor of the van open and smiled. Two terrified passengers wrapped in packing tape, two angry Russians cautiously peeping out the sliding down on the side. Seven, eight, looking great.

The engine of the van coughed once, coughed twice, and started pulling away, the back door flapping in the wind. Alex stared after it for a second, and then nodded at the targets lying on the asphalt. "Would you believe that works nearly every time?" He pulled a knife out and cut through the packing tape. "I'm not saying they're stupid. I'm just saying that you'd think that they'd hire someone with a little more common sense."

"Control to Orion. We have a problem."

"How bad is it?"

"The Bulgarians aren't happy" Alex eyed the flashing blues approaching the entry to the airport with sudden trepidation. "They want the targets."

"Aren't these guys popular?" He motioned the two shaking individuals towards his slowly smoking car. "Did you get contact with the diplomat?"

"He's staying out of it. Doesn't want to get involved."

"Great." He eyed the police cars burning towards them. He hadn't realised quite how far he'd got into the airport. "Am I handing them over or am I getting them out?"

"We don't trust the locals. Do what it takes and get them back."

"Whatever it takes? You sure about that Control?" The police were getting closer. "It might be a bit difficult. I'm in the middle of an international airport with two civvies and a fucked up hire car."

"Control to Orion. Get on with your job. We'll deal with the consequences."

Well, with an invitation like that… he slid back into the driver's seat and rammed the accelerator down and sped after the fading tail lights of the Russian van. He presumed they had some kind of plan, and duplication was the sincerest form of desperation.

"_Where the fuck are they?" _Half-a-mile away in a hanger, an angry Russian man rounded on the driver. "_You had one job. One fucking job. How hard is it to grab two civilians from a hotel in the arse end of Eastern Europe?"_

"_He was here!_" The driver gesticulated wildly, "_The crazy Englishman. Calls himself Orion. Kills Beta. Kills Delta. Steals a car. Kills the rest of us. What the fuck you want me to do?_"

"_One Englishman cannot cause this many problems you fucking idiot. There were nearly twenty of you. How hard can i-"_

The car flew into the hanger and knocked both the Russians flying as it screeched to a halt. Alex's gun came up and shot both of them as he glanced around. He'd come up with a plan, courtesy of the idiots trying to ruin his day.

Steal a jet with the Russian flag emblazoned across it's door, fly to England, hand them over, go home to Lauren. Buy ballet tickets and splash out on a fancy restaurant. Think up something appropriately pleasing to distract her with immediately after he admitted to anything he'd done in the last forty minutes. What could go wrong?

Police cars blocked the hanger entrance as he began flipping switches in the cockpit of the small private plane. He knew there were some take-off checks to do. It was a shame, really, that he had no real intentions of doing them.

The plane rocked as he forced his way through the blockade, the wheels crushing a few bonnets and scattering law enforcement officers like pins in a bowling alley. Pointing down the unopened runway, he opened the throttle. Wheels up. Aim for the border. Escape before they scrambled a military jet.

It was time to go home.

Maybe he could get Lauren some flowers? That was supposed to work... right?


	4. Chapter 4

"Jersey, get on your feet!" The base commander was a brusque man by nature, but James felt this was a little uncalled for. The clock on the wall suggested it was just before 3am local time, and he wasn't on shift for another six hours.

Groaning internally he stumbled out of bed and blearily glared at his CO, "How can I help you, sir?"

"We need you in briefing fifteen minutes ago. Get out of your civvies and move your feet."

The military was good at many things. Training questions out of overly curious privates was one of them. James _had _made it through selection. It had been hard, and his backchat had caused more issues than cared to admit but here he was. Best of the best. Prime of the pack. SAS material.

Afghanistan had always been the busy country of choice to deploy greens to, and his unit was no exception. Patrols, occasional firefights. The constant drudgery of stress as every man, woman and child spoke a language he barely understood, hushed tones and cautious looks cementing the paranoia that at least one of them was out to get him.

And it would only take one. One terrorist. One freedom fighter. One child whose parents had been killed. One brother, one daughter, a grandparent. It could be anyone. He felt the eyes, everywhere.

He pulled on his heavyweight bulletproof vest and picked up his firearm. On the frontiers of the desert, there was no precaution too much. It was 0307 when he knocked on briefings, and it was an unfamiliar face that opened the door.

"You must be Jersey."

"Sir."

"You're the last one. Take a seat."

James didn't recognise any of them. Not really. He'd grunted at them over morning coffee and shot a few bullets down a range next to them. But they weren't his. Not the unit he trained with. Not the unit he worked with. His chair was front and centre. The worst one for any briefing.

The unfamiliar face tapped on the briefing laptop for a second, bringing up a screen, before addressing them. "My name is Ben Daniels, formerly known as Fox. I served for four years before I was co-opted into MI6 against the recommendation of three psychiatrists and two commanding officers. I remain there to this day, serving as Director of Operations."

His eyes seemed to bear into James' for a second. "Some of you may think you know what that means, and I promise you it is far worse. And so allow me to be clear. This mission is highly dangerous, and our intel is imprecise. From this point forward, anything further I will say is classified. You have been selected because you are the members of this deployment with sufficient clearance to be briefed, but as with all such briefings, you are free to step outside this room and return to your duties and no more will be said. There will be no record made on your record, and no judgement made. You have two minutes to decide."

The second hand on the clock swept round for a full rotation before someone shifted their weight out of the back row and slipped out the back row. Three more followed, and then there were six left, apart from the CO and the man known as Fox.

Fox glanced at the CO and tilted his head. "Do you want to be read in on this too?"

"Is it about the kid?"

"When isn't it? You're the only detachment he trusts in this theatre."

"I'll stay then."

James blinked. He'd never even heard of a mission so secretive that a CO was cut out of the chain of information. But Fox nodded as if it was normal and hit another key on the sturdy laptop, lighting up the screen with a map.

"This is Riyadh. One of our operatives is being held in a building on the outskirts by military police. In the morning, they will transfer him to a new location and it is likely that we will lose track of him. This must not happen." Fox's jaw tightened, "Beyond his value as an experienced and successful operative with hundreds of successes for us and our allies, he also possesses critical information on the infrastructure of MI6 operations which may be exposed during interrogation." His voice was steady, "Your mission objectives are to enter the building, secure their safety, and provide them with assistance for extraction. I will be accompanying you in the field. Any questions?"

James blinked. "Is that it?" He blurted out, "We don't get more information?"

"That is the information," Fox stated, "There is no more operational information."

"How many combatants in the house? Civilian or military population? Entry points? Exit points? Extraction?" He glanced at the map again before staring back at Fox, aghast, "How are we supposed to make this a success?"

There was a murmur of agreement from the others in the room, before another voice cut in from the second row. "What happens if the mission objectives aren't met?"

"That is not an option." Fox glanced around the room, "We have thirty-seven minutes until your plane is wheels up. I'll take suggestions on strategy now."

The plane took off three minutes early, and soared above the clouds as it made the trip towards Riyadh.

James looked over his gun with a well-practiced efficiency, glancing over at one of the others, "Is this normal?"

"Knowing nothing?" The soldier scratched his chin, "Yeah, guess so. Spooks don't like to tell us much in case we get captured. RTI not got nothing on the locals."

"Fuck me." Below them, the ground vanished rapidly. "At least this one is straightforward."

"It's never straightforward." Sloth, a man who looked like he fought a brick wall into submission before eating it's carcass for breakfast every day, leaned over. "No matter what they say. There's always something they forgot to mention."

"And we just do it?"

"When you're on the ground with a senior agent?" He shrugged, "Your choice is to follow their lead or be abandoned in the middle of a black op. If you're lucky, they'll swap you for some POWs in a few years. If you're unlucky, you're labelled a deserter and your family told you died in action."

"Fuck me." James repeated himself.

"What do you think happened to Jenkins?" Another soldier stared pensively at an empty jump seat, the plane nowhere near capacity. "They got his body off them eventually. Gave the family some closure."

"Stop fucking with the kid." Fox appeared from the front of the plane and settled in, nodding at James. "We've got your back out here. We haven't lost anyone in seven years."

"What happened seven years ago?"

"Our operative was accidentally shot in the back by a greenhorn." Fox tightened the straps on his vest and ran his hand over the assault rifle. "It's a long time since I've been out in the field like this."

"You're coming all the way?"

"I'm jumping out a plane with you." His voice was bland, but in a dryly sarcastic fashion. "I wasn't exactly planning on stopping halfway to the ground."

"This agent must be really something then." One of the other guys leant over, "The legendary Fox back in the field. Again. Not seen you for a while."

"This agent was formerly Cub."

There was a murmur of recognition, and the atmosphere seemed to lighten up a bit.

James frowned, "Who is Cub?"

"You know the assault course record?"

"At Brecons?"

"Aye, that's the one." One of the Northern lads chimed in, "Cub set that when he was sixteen, and t'ain't a man that's beat it yet."

Fox smiled grimly, "Let's try and make sure the kid can beat his own record."

There was something eerie about jumping out of a plane into the sheer darkness of a new moon. Once the faint go-light behind you fades away, you're left by yourself, in the pitch black. If you're lucky, the stars are out, and you can just about see what you're doing.

Tonight, they weren't lucky.

James blearily tried to peer through the rainclouds whipping at his face to see his altitude meter. The last thing they needed was for him to hit the ground, instead of pulling his parachute. Precision entry wasn't his specialty, but tonight he had to make it work. They needed to land within a minute of each other, within a few metres of each other, into what was designated a hostile zone.

He broke through the bottom of the cloud and instantly regretted wishing he was. It was bad enough when you were hitting the rain. When the rain started pelting at you as well, it hurt in every direction. Six hundred metres to pulling his chute. He could feel the cold start to sink through the thermals. Four hundred metres. Beneath him he could see the first parachute beginning to bloom. Two hundred metres. Don't fuck it up Jersey. And go.

The parachute dragged him to a standstill in the air like a car front-ending a train at full-speed. He could just about make out the ground, dim lights outlining the occasional house on the streets. The flutter of parachutes was inaudible amidst the patter of raindrops hurtling their way towards the ground.

His boots landed and he hit the release, sending the chute flying up into the wind. Some kid would find it and use it as a toy, or a curtain or something, he was sure. They'd seen enough of them in the villages, and it wasn't like they had the time to bury the chutes, or repack them.

They'd landed on the outskirts, about a quarter-mile from their destination. It took them less than ten minutes to cross the distance, even going through the backstreets and alleys that seemed the quietest route. The quiet wouldn't last, but the ghostly nature of streets at 4am in a rainstorm worked in their favour for now. The frontman held up a clenched fist and they ground to a halt. Two groups, one front, one back. That was the plan, and they stuck to it.

James approached the back of the house cautiously. There wasn't much intel to go on, but they could see the reinforcement around the hinges of the door, the thickened glass suggesting that it would take something a little stronger than an elbow to break through it. It was the midway house, was their suspicion. There would be enough men to keep it controlled, but not enough to draw attention from any military intelligence that wanted to infiltrate the country. Unless the occupants did something stupid like capture an agent. That tended to get the attention of hostile agencies.

He was on point. No flinching, no questioning. The moment the breaching charges blew the reinforced hinges out, his foot was through the door and his gun was in the face of whatever poor sod was inside. The radio crackled to life. "And three… two… one…"

The silence ended.

"Clear!" Nothing to the front and right, nothing to the left. Time was measured in microseconds now: in the reaction time of sleeping men to loud explosions.

James crawled up the stairs like a rabbit on crack, and reacted on instinct to movement. "Contact!" A burst of fire, three hurried steps, a second burst of fire. He went flat against the wall and nodded at the man behind him. Three fingers, two fingers, one finger. The door to the bedroom was smashed off its hinges by his foot, only for James to instantly drop to the floor as a tall figure pointed a barrel at the new entryway.

The roar of a shotgun in close proximity was always deafening, even through earplugs, and this was no exception. He aimed his rifle and cut the figure off at the knees. They stumbled backwards and the soldier behind him took the chance to come out from cover and eliminate the threat.

Gunshots echoed throughout the house as they went from room to room. They left the dead bodies. It wasn't like anyone could keep track of who had what guns in this region, and they were torching the place after anyway. It was the door with reinforced hinges at the end of the upstairs corridor that drew James' attention and he nodded towards it with decisiveness.

They'd left the key in the lock, which was convenient. A twist, a click, three fingers, two fingers, one finger.

"Clea- what the fuck are you doing here?"

The agent was lying flat against the wall next to the door, and had instantly relaxed from a hyper aggressive combative stance when they burst in, his right arm cradled carefully against his body.

"Hello."

"Al-"

"My name is Orion." The glare would have killed James if he was wearing any less protective gear. "You'd do well to remember this."

"I thought you were-"

"Now you know better. Names get people killed, and I don't think either of us want me to take my work home with me." He nodded at the soldier behind him. "Good to see you guys. I was beginning to worry that I'd have to get my own way out."

"That was an option?"

"A very painful one." He hesitated for a second. "You guys bring a medic?"

James reached down to his radio, only to have Alex's shoulder ram into him a second later, sending both him and his squadmate flying as a gunshot rang out. James wheeled around, gun rising into the air. Alex hadn't waited. The hostile was lying on the floor, the agent's knees wrapped around his neck. Alex made a sound of slight satisfaction as his good hand found a weapon and one steel nail twisted out the floor punched through an eyeball, stopping the man's struggles.

Orion stood up, blood coating his hands. "There are eight of them. You get the rest?"

"Fuck me." James stared at the dead body, and then back at Alex. "Fuck."

"Did you get the rest?"

"With that guy? We got four up here."

"Three cleared downstairs."

"Any of them slightly overweight with missing front teeth?"

"Why does that matter?"

"Because he's the one that goes out to get smokes at 4am." He glanced into the other rooms as he stalked towards the front of the house. "I'm guessing we've got about 5 minutes before the police are here. What's the escape plan?"

"They're scrambling a chopper about half a klick from here as soon as we've confirmed you're on the move."

"A chopper?" Orion nodded grimly, "That might work. We've got a bit of a diversion to make on the way out."

Fox glanced up at that as they came down, "Never change Cub. Only you would think of taking a diversion with a sprained wrist."

"Actually it's broken." The squad medic was on him in seconds, forcing painkillers down his throat, and a makeshift cast and sling onto the injury. "Doesn't mean that we get a choice."

"You confirmed he's here then?"

"In the flesh." Orion paused, glancing at the rest. "How much are they read in on?"

"Nothing but the basics." Fox nodded. "They're all signatories to your favourite piece of paper though."

"Three minutes to problems. I'll keep it short. Warlord. Big bad guy. Responsible for a lot of the drug trade in Africa. Never leaves his stronghold. Until last week, when he came to Riyadh. He's two miles out of the city, and he can't leave alive. Nice little stronghold. Shame we're going to trash the place."

"You're an assassin?" James just couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Does Lau-"

"Which part of no names do you not fucking get? Names get people killed. Save it for later." Orion glared at him. "We get in the helicopter, we fly over to the stronghold, we kill everyone inside it, we fuck off before the locals get the military here. Any questions?"

There was a moment of silence before Orion flexed his fingers. "I'm also going to need a gun. Loudmouth - give me your small-arm."

James handed it over, still somewhat aghast at the discovery his sister was shacked up with an assassin, and followed faithfully in the wake of the others, his middle of the pack position giving him a little more latitude to recover mentally. Alex wasn't the boring civil servant he pretended to be? Did Lauren _know_? His eyes kept on flicking to the pissed off intelligence agent in their midst, who was urgently discussing something with the other spook, Fox.

Alex was stalking through Riyadh like everyone else was an annoyance to be shot in the face, with prejudice. Which was probably a fair description of his mental state, given an unknown number of days in a interrogation cell. James couldn't imagine being as competent as this after that. He'd just want to crash, let someone carry him out of the mess.

They nearly made it to the LZ before things went south.

"Contact!"

James was reacting before his brain registered it. His gun was up, pointing down the backstreet, to where two police officers were reaching for their guns. Civilians. He hesitated, seeing their pistols rise in slow-motion, seeing Alex move out the corner of his eye.

Two shots rang out, and they dropped on the ground, dead. Alex had shot them both, clean bullets to the head. "Where's our helicopter?"

James' stomach clenched, and he swallowed down the bile that rose at the back of his throat. Alex didn't even seem to _care_. The policemen were two bodies on the ground. Obstacles between him and whatever his goal was. James tried not to look at their faces as they moved past them. Civilians. They didn't sign up for that.

"Fifteen seconds." Fox didn't even blink as he stepped past the bodies. "They don't even want to touch the ground, especially with the diversion before we bug out."

"I've always wanted to jump into a moving helicopter when I've got a broken arm." Alex seemed a little sarcastic. How had James never noticed before? "So thoughtful of you to get me this opportunity for Christmas, Fox. I'll make sure to send the wife something."

"I'd rather you didn't."

"Still pretending you quit active duty?"

"I _have_ quit active duty."

"You seem to turn up to all of my messes."

"The last time I didn't, you stole the Russian ambassador's jet, wrecked half of an international airport, and left dead bodies all over a major city."

"Control told me I could."

"They fired him."

Alex opened his mouth to retort, but the deafening throb of a helicopter swept through the skies as it descended into the crossroads. They stormed over, keeping their heads down and out of the way and loaded up. Alex reeled off a long series of digits, and it was only halfway through that James realised that they were lat-long coordinates.

Alex slumped into the harness next to him and turned the purloined gun over in his hand. "You keep this in good working order. It's appreciated."

"We're in the desert. What else am I going to do?"

"You got reloads?" James handed them across mutely, and watched as Alex slipped them into the waistband of his trousers. "What's your name when we're out in the field?"

"I'm Jersey."

"Like the cow?" Alex sniggered slightly, "You must have pissed off the drill sarge."

"He said I had big beautiful eyes."

"I'm sure we both know someone that would agree."

Fox snorted. "Stop hazing him Cub."

"We got two and a half minutes. What else am I supposed to do?"

One of the other soldiers cut in. "You know where he is in this place?"

"Not the basement." Alex didn't even blink as he continued, "That's where they keep the tanks."

"Tanks." James felt his mouth go dry. "This guy just has a tank lying around."

"Two actually. What part of African Warlord did you not understand?"

"Compound ahead." The pilot's voice was calm, professional. "Do I need to be worried about any anti-air weaponry?"

"Just machine guns," Alex reassured him, "And perhaps a couple of tanks. I wouldn't worry too much. We'll be in and out in five minutes."

And like that, they were go. Alex was out the door, his pistol up and firing at the slightest hints of movement visible inside the house, almost before James had realised that the chopper was close enough to the ground to let them drop out.

James had never realised how deadly someone could be. As fast as James located a target, Alex killed them. His good hand was steady as he stalked his way across the dirt, barely glancing at the guards as his gun tracked inevitably across the field. He made killing look as easy as breathing. James didn't know whether to be impressed or disgusted.

His breath caught as a bullet dug into the ground by the agent's feet, a gunman finding an open window on the 1st floor. James fired some bullets towards the house in reply, trying to suppress the danger. And then the agent fired once more, and a body slumped out of the upstairs window, silenced forever.

James caught up as Alex reached the front door. "You're fucking nuts."

"We're on a schedule." Alex reloaded with one hand, doing some weird roll of his wrist that seemed to whisk a magazine up and away into the gun. "Give me cover."

Alex rammed the doors open with his right shoulder, leaving his left arm free to come up, finding off an unfortunate guard who had chosen to stand at the top of the stairs in the hopes of picking them off as they came through the door. James could barely keep up as the sandy haired man moved efficiently through the property.

Sixteen rooms and twenty two bodies later, Alex stepped over a dead body and into an office where a man sat slumped in a swivel chair, an expensive bottle of Waragi open on the desk, badly fitting suit squeezed over corpulent obesity.

"Good evening." Alex's voice was calm and still. "I am surprised to find you still here."

"How many years have you been chasing me?" The man tapped his fingers forwards onto the desk, letting the lint glint on gems embedded into gold rings. "It was always going to come to this."

"And now it has."

"Indeed." The man clambered to his feet awkwardly, "I surrender."

James started moving forwards to secure him, when Alex's arm smacked into his chest ."You'll be disappointed to hear that I have kill orders."

"An unarmed man, in the comfort of his own home?" He raised an eyebrow, "What would the Americans think? You should give them a ring."

"You think they'll get you out of it." It was the certainty in Alex's voice that gave the warlord pause for a second.

"I have worked for them for over a decade. My identification is Beta, Omega, Foxtrot, Niner, Fiver, Tree, Lima."

Alex tipped his head to one side, considering it for a long and awkward second.

"Alex." James spoke from behind him. "There's room. We can take him."

Alex made an indecipherable noise of annoyance, and instantly fired, even as a look of triumph started to creep onto the man's face.

Silence seemed to fall, the sound of gunfire outside muted by the thick walls.

James stared. "He surrendered!"

"And you told him my name." Alex glared, "He was a dead man the moment you opened your stupid fucking mouth." He keyed up on his radio, "Target down. We're extracting in sixty seconds."

"You can't just shoot unarmed civilians." James riled up, angrily moving towards the man, only to find the hot metal of a muzzle pressing into his forehead, backing him off.

"Let me be clear, Jersey. You are in some deep fucking shit. When you next touch down in home sweet home, you will be going through operational security training so fucking intense that it makes Brecons look like the boy scouts." Alex's eyes bore holes into his skull, "You blew it. You fucked up."

"You fucked up. You murdered him!" James glared right back, trying desperately not to think about his chances of fighting Alex. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

Alex just stared at him for a long second before shaking his head in disgust. "And now you're fucking up again by trying to argue about this in the middle of a fucking war zone."

Without taking his eyes off of James, Alex pointed his gun towards the door and fired, dropping a guard who was just skidding to a halt in the entryway. "Move your goddamn feet and get back to the chopper. We've got thirty seconds."

And with that, Alex took off.

"Cub. You're late." Fox pulled them into the chopper, which was already beginning to ascend even before either of them were settled into their jumpseats. "Everything okay?"

"Jersey here decided to try and get me _and_ his sister killed by telling the fuckwad my name." Alex was still furious, "We need to let the Americans know that they have to move to whatever contingency they've got for this guy catching a bullet. He gave his code. Beta, Omega, Foxtrot, Niner, Fiver, Tree, Lima."

Fox was very still for a second, before casting an eye at James, who suddenly felt the heat of many eyes falling upon him. "Give me a minute."

The indistinct noise of phone conversation on a moving helicopter was only interspersed by occasional chatter. Alex's obvious anger had startled many of the operatives into an uneasy silence, and Fox's displeasure was enough for them to slowly sidle away from James.

It wasn't until they were on the final approach to the camp that Alex spoke again, anger shining his clipped voice, "Let me make some things clear, _Jersey_. I am one of this country's most valued assets, and one of the most contested intelligence contractors under its control. I know how long you have served this country. I know exactly when you started. Let me tell you that I've been serving this country, in far more dangerous places, against far more dangerous threats, for far longer."

"And never, not even once, has anyone compromised my identity to the extent you managed to do with a single word." Alex's voice had been controlled and tight, but rage was starting to creep in, "You showed a disregard for my security. You showed a disregard for my personal protection. You put me, _and everyone connected to me_, at risk. I am recommending that you are immediately remanded from duty until such a time as you can be returned to the UK for further disciplinary action and additional training."

James' sense of unease started to rise and he opened his mouth, only for Alex to cut off his objections with the lift of a single finger. "Of course, I am not your superior officer, and any such recommendation is subject to their determination. Perhaps he will be generous. But if no such action is taken then you will lose your clearance by the end of the week."

James paled. He knew what that meant - no clearance, no chance of being promoted. No more chance to switch to the intelligence services after his tour of service. The nail in the coffin of his dreams. "It was a name. What is he going to do?"

"Six years I've kept my name a secret. Six years we've watched people try to connect Orion to a single individual. There are entire _countries _that think it's a codename given to multiple individuals." Alex shook his head, "Just a name. It might have been enough to get me killed. Get my _house _bombed. Is that a risk you want to take?"

James shut his mouth, and shook his head.

"Then next time?" Alex pushed the chagrined soldier out in front of him as the heli touched down. "Keep your goddamn mouth shut."


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Unsurprisingly, the version of this fic found on AO3 under an author of the same name is also me. I appreciate your concern that things are being ripped off, but...**

"James came round earlier today".

Alex looked down at the pretty brunette head in his lap and blinked, "Again?"

"How long do you think it's going to take him?"

"At least another month. The bank impressed upon him the importance of the utmost secrecy." Alex grinned, "About the only thing they're any good at is convincing people not to tell anyone anything."

"Normally it takes about five minutes for him to forget about secrecy." Layren frowned, "I don't know whether to be impressed that he learnt some discretion, or disappointed that he hasn't told me that you're lying to me."

"Hey!" Alex protested,"I've never lied to you."

"Barcelona."

"Okay," Alex acknowledged. "Once. But that was the only time."

"And our holiday was ruined." Lauren jabbed a finger into his chest sharply, "We spent all of the second week hiding in a safe house instead of enjoying the sun."

"Criminal supervillains do need to be stopped."

"Would it have killed anyone for you to wait until after we'd been to at least one street party?"

"It might have killed a school full of kids."

"Might." Lauren raised an eyebrow. "That's not what you told me last time."

"Is there any reason you're giving me a hard time tonight or should I go put the heating on in the basement?"

"Your ego wouldn't stand being beat up by a little girl, training room or otherwise."

"So there's a reason then." He tapped her nose lightly, "You going to tell me?"

"It's nearly May."

"If you tell me you don't want an agent's license to concealed carry, I'll be upset about all the hard work I put in for your birthday."

"Its not that." She bit her lip, before blurting it out, "Do you want to come to the party?"

Alex felt his heart skip a beat. "Meet your friends?"

"And get to know my brother a bit better." Lauren met his eyes calmly, "

"I'm not sure he'll ever be convinced that I'm not a killer." Alex hesitated, "He saw some pretty bad stuff in Afghanistan."

"You did what you thought you needed to." There was the tone of disapprovement in her voice that he was used to, when they talked about this. Which they had. Several times. "You minimised risk."

"Should I have waited?" Alex's hands stopped their path through her hair and fell to his sides. "Should I have taken the risk that things could have spilled over into my life? Into your life? Into _our_ life?"

"Our life, huh." She gazed thoughtfully past him for a second, examining the decoration in the ceiling. "What was he going to do exactly?"

"Track me down? Try to strike against me?" _Hurt you. _He thought. Alex ran a hand through his hair, "Maybe he didn't need to die. I just... reacted. There was a potential threat, I reacted to the threat, I removed the threat, I moved on."

"Do you feel guilty?"

"I feel guilty for _not_ feeling guilty."

"Your training was pretty comprehensive. Your emotional control is to be expected."

Lauren pulled herself up and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "You might even consider it an essential part of your job."

"Cross out my emotions. Close off my mind. Be instinctive, decisive. Ruthless." Alex was bitter. He let out a sigh. "That or let myself be plagued with doubts."

She held him close for a second, before dragging him to his feet. She caught his hand as he turned, and pulled it playfully as she backed towards the door. "Come on. Let's go beat those thoughts out of you. I won't go easy on you tonight."

His glower made her laugh delightfully, and Alex couldn't stop his mouth turning up at the corners. "Am I really that maudlin tonight?"

She tweaked his nose. "Yup."

The basement of Alex's house had, since Lauren's arrival, slowly transformed from wine cellar to training room. The remnants of his uncle's collection had been passed onto devout collectors, and a new collection had arisen in its place. Mats, boards, gloves. Weapons. Alex's eyes glanced at the lock on the gun cage briefly. Secure, safe. Quick to release, ready to go. Not what he wanted to grab tonight.

Lauren stripped off her jacket as she stalked towards the centre of the cellar. Her tank top left little to the imagination, her muscles rippling as she flexed. He kept his eyes on her as she stretched up towards the ceiling, only shrugging off his admiration when she settled into a crouch, hands in a guard before her face.

"What rules do you want tonight?"

"Let it go?" She suggested, grinning, "I think I can take you."

Alex snorted, and tilted his head. "You're getting slower every week."

"Then we should train more." Her voice carried a clear challenge. "I'm no good to you if I'm too slow to look after myself."

Alex ran a hand through his hair, slowly pushing his depressive thoughts about the events in Riyadh to the back of his mind. "Well." He finally settled on, "If you're sure."

Lauren's face settled into a wicked smirk as he stalked towards her. "Do your best spy boy."

And Alex exploded. His feet blurred as they swept towards her, forcing her to take a small step back to dodge. He was in constant motion though, his momentum carrying his hands forwards, jabbing into her defense. She deflected, blocked, and then knocked one aside, finding a small crack to force a retaliation into.

Her riposte didn't even make it halfway through the small space between them before his arms were sweeping it aside, destroying her guard. Three quick steps and he was unstoppable, too close to be blocked as he slammed her, gently, into the mats.

Barely twenty seconds, beginning to end.

Lauren's chest heaved as she caught her breath, face slowly settling into a wry acknowledgement that she made a few mistakes in being quite so antagonistic.

"You are absolutely terrifying Alex." She waited for him to release a hand and pushed against his body, giving her space to stand up. "I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone move so quickly."

He snorted, collapsing onto the floor. "CHERUB campus isn't the best place to get an education in killing. There's probably at least a dozen people better than me."

"A dozen. How will you survive?" It was her turn to be sarcastic, as she got back to her feet. "So many threats out to get you."

He blinked, "I could shoot them?"

Lauren snorted. "You want to go again?"

Resting his head on the ground he closed his eyes. "Sure. Whenever you're ready."

Lauren wasn't going to miss such a blatant invitation. Her foot was stomping towards his groin almost as fast as his hands raced to block her foot. It was uniquely difficult to fight across the vertical axis, but Lauren was quick to realise that Alex's apparent overconfidence came more from extensive practice than ego. It wasn't until he managed to grasp one foot securely that she realised he had been toying with her. He yanked, and she tumbled to the floor, the impact forcing the breath out of her. He lazily pinned her with a leg, and let her futile struggles continue until she gave up on escape.

"Do you practice every weird fighting style?"

"Only the useful ones." He held the pin a little longer, just to get the point across, before unwrapping his legs from around her. "I guess I can meet your friends."

"I think it'll be fine."

"What do you want to tell them?"

"About what?"

"About this." He nudged her with an elbow as they clambered to their feet. "We don't have the most usual of situations."

"Why don't we try the truth?"

Alex turned, his hand catching her arm gently, "And what's the truth? We live together, we go on dates? You're my live-in security guard and moral compass?"

She wilted. "If that's what you want to say."

He gently lifted her chin. "I don't want to presume anything. My life isn't a simple path."

"Maybe you should presume as much as I've been presuming." Her body seemed to be pressing against his, her mouth suddenly very close. "Live-in security don't normally get apology flowers. Or expensive date nights. Or late night couch cuddles. Or ring their boss every evening that they're out the country."

His voice dropped, catching on his breath, "What do you want me to presume exactly?"

"Oh I think you kn-"

Alex's mobile rang, vibrating in his pocket against her leg. She leapt backwards, catching her breath as he dug a hand into his jeans. Alex glanced at the screen, "I need to get this."

"Yeah, I know."

"It's work. You know what they're like." There was an awkward pause as they tried to look anywhere but at the other before Alex cleared his throat and hit the green button. "Agent Rider."

Lauren had never stopped to watch Alex as he transitioned into work mode. A casual slouch turning into a tall, confident stance. Shoulders rolling backwards. His voice dropped nearly an octave, the customary estuary English becoming a neutral voice, devoid of almost any personal inflection or cadence.

"When?" He glanced at her apologetically. "Tonight? Uhuh." She could see the tightness in his brows, a little sign of unhappiness. Without thinking, she reached out and squeezed his shoulder, watching as the little sign of tension vanished. "Okay. Yes. America?" Lauren let her hand drift down his arm, feeling the constrained strength that he had unleashed earlier, cords of muscle ready to spring. "That's going to add a lot of travel time." He sounded annoyed again. She stepped around him, hand still trailing across his warmth. "Do we have to?" She slowly wrapped her arms around him, gentle touches teasing away his annoyance. "Why?" There was no soft indistinct voice then, and Alex had gone from annoyed to perplexed.

"They're sending me to Mexico via America." She thought he might have frowned, but with her cheek pressed against his back, she couldn't check, "They didn't seem particularly clear on why."

"Do they normally say?"

"They give me more than this, yes." He was definitely frowning now, so she squeezed gently.

"Then I guess it's time you go and do your job and find out what they want from you."

"I know what they want from me Lauren." His eyes met hers, a darkness lurking inside that she hadn't seen before. "They want everything."

Just a few miles away, on a mid-level floor of a rather tall skyscraper, a man in a grey suit stared pensively out into the darkness. Suddenly, he was disturbed by a voice from behind him. "We've lost him."

"They did seem a tad domestic, didn't they?"

"He took her on a date. A genuine date. The first night after he got back from Italy."

"Isn't that their deal?" Ben Daniels, MI6 Agent Management, raised an eyebrow, "I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the contract that we put together with CHERUB. A minimum number of dates, with penalties of bigger and better dates if he ever missed one."

"That's not the point." Tulip's hand slammed onto the table. "And don't think that I don't know you put that in there for your own sadistic enjoyment."

Ben shrugged, unrepentant. "Everyone seems to be enjoying the side-effects."

"I'm just worried about what it means." She rubbed the crick in her neck tiredly. "Can we afford to lose him?"

"I thought you'd decided we had."

"You know what I mean."

MI6, on the whole, was enjoying the latest development in the Rider saga. Most had, at some point, met the determined agent who seemed to blast his way through missions like a particularly annoying fictional protagonist with a splash of pyromania and training in explosives. It was like a hurricane, or a typhoon, said a few people. You don't know exactly what damage is going to be caused, but you get out of the way and let the storm rage. Then, once it's done, you go and find out whether there are any survivors.

Even his more clandestine missions were, relatively, exciting.

Ben had provided sniper support for a compound infiltration once, and would talk anyone through the simulation training they built around the entire thing. As yet, no one had managed to escape the simulation alive, let alone complete any of the six objectives from three separate intelligence agencies from two separate countries that Rider had somehow squeezed into a single location on a single day.

It was the stuff that legends were born of, and Rider had become a legend. To see him playing house with anyone - especially a female agent from a hitherto almost-unknown intelligence agency operating on their own shores - had been cause for great amusement.

Permanent protection detail on Rider's house had always promised to be interesting, even before the developments. A betting pool on what wounds he would admit to, and which wounds he would treat at home, had been very popular. Now it was on which restaurant the two agents might go to next. Never the same one twice, and never one that you wouldn't want to dress up for. The close protection detail had - unsuccessfully - tried to convince the Quartermaster that they also had to get a table at each and every one of the restaurants.

That the female agent - Lauren - had noticed them almost immediately had been a point in her favour. That she smashed most of the leaderboard scores in the training sims was cause for a more mixed response. It was good that Rider had proper close protection in the house, no one disagreed with that. They were less sold on the entire femme fatale aspect, especially when they discovered that Rider was also providing additional training. Fragile masculine egos didn't even want to consider what might happen if Lauren ended up going head to head with them.

Bruises incurred in close combat training tended to bring long memories, and over half the current operatives had suffered through at least one masterclass led by the typhoon himself.

That didn't stop the betting though. Intelligence agents are fundamentally professional gossips, and barely a day went past without idle speculation about what really went on inside the house. It was pretty much the only location on what was affectionately dubbed "Rider-watch" where they weren't allowed to cycle through cameras to get a front row seat of the action. No matter the stakes in the game, everyone agreed on two things.

First, that Lauren was a bombshell. Sexy, smart and potentially lethal. A package you'd regret turning down, one way or another.

Second, that _something_ was going on with Rider. Opera? Ballet? Regular dates? There were covers, and then there was whatever this was.

"Well, I can't say that I'm surprised. I honestly thought that this was part of your plan." Ben eyed his long-time colleague from his comfortable chair, "You put her and her life right in his way."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Tulip. She's out."

"She's working for us."

"Only on paper." He waved his hand through the air, dismissing her point. "She's on a full-time university course. The only connection she has left to the intelligence world is a meeting every month with Zara Asker, who mostly spends the time encouraging her to quit the job that we gave her."

"She's got Alex as well."

"I thought that was the problem." He pointed a finger at her accusatively, "You think she's going to take him and run."

"Oh, I don't know." Tulip drummed her fingers on her desk, eyeing a stack of files in her in-tray. "I'm just concerned."

"For Rider? For Lauren? Or for us?" Ben leaned forwards, "I'm not going to say you're completely wrong, but you definitely are clutching at a fistful of straws here. The agency will prevail, the agency always has done, and always will."

"She has friends." It seemed like a non-sequitur, and was delivered like one. "You know that? Genuine, honest-to-god friends. She spent two hours on Friday at the pub with them." Tulip pushed herself away from the desk and stalked over to the window to stare down at the city of London beneath them. "When was the last time one of our agents did that?"

"I have friends."

"And you spend your days training them in the basement of a building so secret that we hire an entire trading floor of bankers." Her eyes followed a bird as it dived through the buildings, twisting and turning in the air, "Her friends don't even know that there's a threat out there trying to break through the veneer of civility we've built this country's foundations."

"I still don't see your point." He raised an eyebrow, "You're not suggesting that having friends is a sign of instab-"

"No." Soft-spoken, but firm. Demanding attention. "But it's a sign that she's getting out. She's leaving this world behind her. She did six years? Seven? And here she is, in one of the busiest cities in the world, and she loves every second of it. She doesn't think twice about whether she might be in a fight for her life. She doesn't worry about whether she might get a phone call tomorrow sending her to the other side of the world. She's dreaming, and living for the dream."

"Alex has dreams too you know." Ben slumped back in the chair again, "He used to talk about them, before he signed on with us permanently. Professional footballer used to be bounced around. He was good enough - could have done it. Now he's more likely to talk about moving up the pipeline here."

"He would have made a terrible footballer."

"Or a fabulous one." Ben pushed himself out of the chair and wandered over to stare out the window as well, the city lights beneath creating an orange glow like a carpet that stretched as far as the eye could see. "Extreme sports perhaps? That could have worked."

"I'll admit he's an adrenaline junkie." She sighed. "It's not the point. The point is that he's living with someone who is getting out. He's going to want to get out too."

There was a pregnant pause. Ben opened his mouth a few times, but thought better of it. He couldn't deny that Tulip wasn't right in some ways. It wasn't as if any active field agent lasted more than a few years. Maybe a decade, sometimes even two. Never more than that. It wasn't a lifestyle that encouraged longevity, stability or consistency.

"What's your plan then?" He finally settled on, turning back to Tulip and her desk. "You wouldn't have brought this up if you weren't thinking about it."

She steeled herself, and reached for a pile of folders. "The Agency must survive Ben, you know that. You know what we need to do."


	6. Chapter 6

Joe Byrne hadn't been promoted to Director of the Central Intelligence Agency because of a belief in coincidences. The Drevin debacle had been just one rung in a ladder made of many, and he had risen until he had oversight of America's intelligence agents in the war against the unknown.

He took it seriously, as should be expected, and it wasn't unusual for his secretary to find him already at his desk, and for the cleaners to disturb him late at night. He didn't sleep there, but he didn't go back to his secure house in the middle of Washington for more than that.

The only unusual thing about tonight was that he wasn't alone in the office at two in the morning. Instead, the situation room was in full flow, screens flashing information in front of him as - for the first time in years - events had spiralled out of control.

"China has confirmed it wasn't them."

"Do we trust them?"

"They're stupid, but not this stupid. We're waiting on the Iranians now."

"Get in touch with the Mexicans. I want the name of every person that entered their damn country in the last week."

"Yes sir!"

"And for the love of god, someone refill the damn coffee. We're going to need it."

He strode back and forth on his platform, staring down at the heads of the analysts working beneath him. They were paid to protect. They were paid to prevent. They weren't paid to fail.

And now the Secretary of State was dead.

Shot by a sniper after a late night showing at a theatre in Mexico City. A sniper who had managed to escape the security detail that escorted all major politicians around the globe. Which made it worse in some ways, because that meant they were dealing with a professional.

"Do we have their security tapes yet?"

"Helicopter will be landing in about two hours with the hard drives, sir."

"These people don't work alone. Who was on the guest list? Get me the names of all the staff working the theatre and run background searches. Come on people!"

Joe was good at reading body posture. It came with the territory, and a history of working in hostile interrogation. And so when one of his analysts paused slightly and tilted their head, he was already moving towards them.

"Lewison, speak to me."

"I'm not quite sure sir. I cross-referenced recent border crossings with our database, and found an irregularity." Lewison was a good analyst. One of the best working the night shift. "It's just something small. Guy called Alex Gardiner."

"What about him?"

"It's his passport." A few clicks of a button, and data flew across the screen. "It was in common use about three years ago, passing through the country several times a year. It was last used to fly to London last year, and nothing since. Until today, when it was used to cross from the States into Mexico."

Joe frowned. "Carry on."

"Well sir, how did the passport get _back_ to the US?" Lewison tapped furiously on their keyboard, bringing up another screen, "And when I looked into it, it's not the first time this passport has miraculously crossed borders. It's done so three times before."

"Error in the system perhaps?" Joe grimaced, "TSA aren't exactly the genius kid brother in our little security family."

"That's what I thought at first." Lewison tabbed over to another window. "But this isn't the first time our mysterious Mr Gardiner has travelled to Mexico. Five years ago, before he went to London? One crossing at Laredo, destined for Monterrey."

"Five years ago? Isn't that when…"

"Yeah. Mob boss died. Screwed up a load of our drug ops. They never caught the sniper."

"Fuck." Joe took a deep breath and shook his head. "He's yours to find. You're authorised to do some digging. Thirty minutes. Leave no stone unturned."

Alex Gardiner. There was a name that rang a faint bell.

Across the border, Alex slipped out of the shadows opposite his latest hotel and waltzed through the door. Things had not gone to plan, and now he was trapped in Mexico. This was becoming a trend. He scowled, a black look that would have caused most people to recoil in fear. If he was honest, he still didn't have a fucking clue what was going on, and he'd been on the move for two days. Fly to America, road trip through America, cross the border, shoot a target, and then get tangled up in some shitshow of a disaster.

And, for some reason, MI6 wasn't picking up. He'd rang the hotline, twice. The agent emergency number, once. And then he'd rang the goddamn reception of the bank. It rang, and it rang, and it rang, and he could _smell_ the politics. It smelt like the finest of country fields after they'd just been freshly laid with the brownest manure the farmer could shovel out of his livestock pen.

Alex was black ops: He knew what it meant when your handlers stopped picking up the phone. Three hours in and it was only just beginning to settle in. MI6 were disowning him. He was stuck on the other side of the fucking planet.

Which really led him to where he was now. Skulking in his third hotel room of the night wondering whether he had any other choices, turning his phone over and over in his hand as he stared into space.

Typically, black op agents that got disowned had three choices. Not officially. But realistically? Everyone knew it.

Option one: you disappeared. You went off the grid. You vanished into the darkness and were never seen again. You became a ghost in the machine, slipping between the cracks of society and existing off the resources you pilfered from the light.

Option two: you went back. Sometimes, just sometimes, whatever it was that led to you being disowned could be hushed up enough to get you out of the situation. You could get back to the right place, at the right time, and the right people could help you out. You apologised. You begged. And, if you were lucky, you went back to your job.

Option three: you retaliated. You bottled up your anger and your frustration and that feeling of abandonment and you found out who made the call to leave you out there in the cold, dark world by yourself. And then you _fucked them up_.

Alex had never been good at being invisible. He'd never been good at apologising, definitely not at begging. And that only really left one choice. It was just…

He dialled the number from memory, a glance at a clock enough to confirm that she should pick up. And it rang. And that was enough for him to know something was _really_ not right. There was only one conclusion: compromised communications.

Alex dismantled the phone, pulling out the memory card, the SIM, and then throwing the rest into the toilet bowl piece by piece, flushing it all away, sending it into the depths of Mexico's sewers. Then he stood up, letting the cold weight of the gun under his jacket settle in. He had some running to do.

"Sir." Lewison's voice pulled Joe out his thoughts instantly, "I've found a hit on our mystery man."

"Give me it."

"It's one of our aliases. We set it up for an undercover op back in 2005."

"Why didn't we retire it?"

"I thought that was odd, so I did some digging. And, well." He pulled up the relevant files. "Looks like we did. You certainly signed off on it. It was one of your operations"

"One of mine?" Joe blinked, "If we retired it, why didn't they catch it at border control? We would have voided the passport."

"We'd have to check a few more things before I could say for sure." Lewison hesitated. "Is this being classified as a national security incident?"

Joe paused. "You've already checked haven't you?"

"Pleading the fifth." Lewison frowned, "But hypothetically, this could be the kind of thing where I'd need you to sign off on some international espionage."

"You got us a country with a smoking gun. Fuck." Joe paused. "Anything goes right now. Give me it."

"Someone from London hacked us."

"Sorry?"

"London. MI6 probably. I had to do some fingerprinting, but it looks like somebody borrowed a diplomatic pass from our detachment over there and used it to rig up some backdoors."

"How badly were we compromised?"

"That's the odd thing." Lewison's jaw tightened, "They could have done pretty much anything. And I mean - anything. Whoever they are, they're good. They got full access. All they did was tweak a few details here and there. And then they were out. They even closed the backdoor. If we didn't have the last decade of server logs backed up then I wouldn't have been able to work out even this much."

"Theories?"

"That's well beyond my paygrade."

"Humour me."

"They needed an identity. This was easier than making their own."

"Black ops, you think?"

"Looks like it." Lewison brought up another document, "I didn't get time to go digging fully, but a database search of travel dates cross-referenced with the international crime database over at Interpol identified at least eight events which could be connected."

"Fuck." Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is going to get really fucking messy."

"If the British government assassinated the Secretary of State?" Lewison's face turned incredulous. "You think?"

"I'm going to go have a chat with their Director of Operations." Joe pointed a finger at the screen, "Find me a real name, an up-to-date photo, video footage of them crossing the border, their goddamn location and anything else you can lay hands on. And Lewison?"

"Sir?"

"This is your lead. I don't want anyone else on this. Not until we've got more information." Joe swiped a finger angrily across his mobile, bringing up his personal contact details for his British counterpart. "I could do without every other intelligence agency in the country trying to snatch up our friend, so don't give anyone anything. They've got enough moles here to kill a goddamn gardener."

Joe grimaced as he strode towards the door. This was _not_ going to be a fun conversation.

Lauren stared at the TV. She wasn't a fool. She knew what Alex did. What she didn't get this time was _why_.

She glanced down at her phone again - no calls, no texts, no messages. She knew something was off when it didn't ring, and now she was convinced that things were not right.

The knock on the door was really all it took to get her adrenaline running. The gun was in her hand before she actively recognised the threat.

"Who is it?"

"Open the damn door Lauren." It sounded like her brother. "I want to talk to Alex."

"That might be hard." She kept the gun level as she cautiously opened the door, looking her brother up and down. "Get inside."

"What the fuck?" James eyed the gun with some level of fear, "Does Alex know you're packing heat?"

"Who do you think gave me it?" The gun slid back into it's holster, "He's in Mexico."

"Shit." His eyes flicked from the weapons lying around the hall to the TV in the living room, reading the headlines on the screen, "Is that…"

"I don't know."

"Did he?"

"I don't know!"

"But wh-"

"I don't fucking know James." He trailed after her into the living room where she was pacing rapidly from side to side, "One second he's here, supposedly about to take some leave, the next they're sending him to fucking Mexico. Hours after he's supposed to get there, someone takes a potshot at the fucking Secretary of State of the fucking United States and offs the bastard."

"Laur-"

"He misses his check-in, he misses his second check-in, he doesn't respond to messages. His phone is fucking dead-"

"Laur-"

"-and all I fucking know is that nothing makes any sense-"

"Lauren!"

She cut off her increasingly angry ranting to glare at him, "What?"

He nodded towards the window just as the doorbell rang. Blue lights flashed against the blinds in the pulsating light that could only mean one thing. Her hand trailed towards the gun again as she edged towards the door.

Three rapid knocks and another doorbell. "Police! Open up! We know you're in there!"

The siblings glanced at each other, James looking worried, Lauren's face still twisted into a rictus of anger. "James. Do you trust me?"

"You're my sister."

"You trust me?"

"Open up! This is your last chance! We know you're in there!"

"Always."

"Get the ram."

"Go upstairs. Don't come down. Stay in the bedroom."

She didn't look back as she stalked towards the door, letting the sound of his footsteps fade into nothing as he rapidly raced his way towards the back of the house. A deep breath, a second deep breath, a fake smile plastered on her face, and she opened the door.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" She raised an eyebrow as she assessed the six uniforms on the doorstep, and then amended her words, "And gentle-lady."

One of them made a movement towards the door, only to take a rapid step back when Lauren shifted her weight enough to let the firearm come into view. "We're looking for Alex Rider."

"You got a warrant for that?"

The one at the back snorted and nodded towards the gun, "You got a permit for that?"

"Yes, actually." She smirked, "And a license to use it."

The first cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing, "We're acting on urgent intelligence. We don't need a warrant."

"You think we're in some shitty police drama?" She gestured towards the street with the hand not dangerously close to her hip, "You don't have the right to enter this property, and you're not going to get it either."

"You're in possession of a firearm. That gives us the ri-"

"I'll stand here and wait whilst you go and look up my name and right to carry on whatever shitty system you've got installed into your car." She pointed towards the end of the path up to the front of the door, "In the meantime, you can stand _there_ and wait for a warrant."

At least two of the officers were looking slightly worried now. "Look miss, you're interfering in matters that you don't full-"

"Allow me to be clear." She cut them off, putting together the clues in a way that made a sudden sort of sense, "You're not even police officers."

_There. _A scowl. She had them. One of them reached towards his belt slowly, "You want to see my ID?"

She snorted: "You want to know how I know that isn't ID in your pocket?" She took a half-step back, resting her hand just out of their view on the table next to the door. "I know who Alex Rider is. And there's no fucking way that they'd only send _six_ of you to arrest him."

With a growl, the man closest to her pulled a baton and lunged forwards. Two steps back took her well within the property, the door blocking their entry as she slammed it into their face. Two seconds later, the taser she'd left on the table was in her hand. One down, a twitching mess on the floor.

She leapt forwards, hands grabbing onto the ledge of the door as she sent the next one flying down the steps to crack his skull on the stone and sending the others stumbling backwards trying to find their feet. The gun was out of her holster instantly as she dropped to her knee and let her instincts take over, placing bullets in the centre of mass for two more before they could react.

It was only when she let the gun drop to launch herself off the steps onto the next one that realised how _slow_ they all seemed after months of sparring against Alex-fucking-Rider. Her shoulder took a hit as she closed the distance, but her momentum was enough to get one of them to trip backwards over the low wall, leaving only one more to disable. Step to the left, catch the arm, pull it down, lock the elbow, and _crack_.

She curbstomped the heads of any that were still groaning for good measure as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialled the number for MI6.

"I hope you guys were fucking watching that." The door slammed shut behind her, leaving six bodies unconscious and bleeding in the cold of the night. "And you'd best have some damn answers when your useless asses show up."


End file.
